


Going the Distance

by orphan_account



Category: The Walking Dead
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Slow Burn, Smut, bethyl, the walking dead - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-04-26 09:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 32,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4999348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth Greene desperately wants a baby, all of the others around her have started their life and she feels as though she is left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Strawberry Kisses

Beth stares out of her bedroom window, marveling at the land that they found two years ago. After Alexandria fell they had to leave, start a new again. It wasn't ideal for anyone to have to leave th past behind and try to start things up from scratch. But here it was, a rot iron gate, surrounding this brig, unbreakable looking mansion.

 

When they found it there had been walkers wandering around the fenced in area, they lured them to gate and took them out, then they went inside and took the others out. It looked like they had been there for a while, maybe from the very beginning, but at least the house was still intact and that the gate was too. This would be there new home now. 

 

She had claimed the room on the third floor, the one with a balcony and a walk in closet. She had been gathering close for herself on every run that she tagged along with, she loved it, loved having her own clothes and a nice warm bed. They were practically in heaven. The only thing Beth didn’t like about her new home was the large mirror that was her ceiling, whoever had been in this room before must had been a narcissist. She didn’t like look at herself though, didn’t like looking at her new scarred up face. It bothered her. 

 

Everyone had been settling down, as soon as they found this place and they had managed to build and even bigger gate and had kept this place safe for two years they knew that this was going to be the place where they would set up the new civilization. Rick and Michonne had had a baby together just three months ago, Maggie was eight months pregnant, Rosita was three months and Sasha just found out she was pregnant last week. Beth wanted to be a mom so bad, but she didn’t have a person to help her out on the other half. Maggie had Glenn, Rosita has Abraham, Sasha had Bob and Michonne has Rick. The only men left were Noah, Daryl, Eugene, Carl and Tyreese. 

 

Beth had feelings for Noah, but she didn’t think that he was mature enough to be a father, Tyreese was busy being an uncle and not really Beth’s type. Eugene had the hots for Tara - Beth felt sad for him because she was after all a Lesbian. And Daryl was just so pulled away from everyone but she loved looking at him while he held Judith, she knew he’d be a good daddy if he ever got the chance. And well Carl. he was only seventeen and Beth knew he was still young in his age. 

 

“Hey Beth!” Carl yelled from the yard. He was outside in the garden, they had been growing all kinds of things from Corn to Strawberries. 

 

“What’s up Carl?” She yelled back. 

 

“Nothing, just outside with Judith, you should come down and help me pick some strawberries for breakfast.” He was usually one to flirt with Beth- he and Noah that is. 

 

“Alright, give me a minute and I’ll be down in a giffy.” She yelled and ran inside. 

 

While Beth was four years older than the boy she still flirted with him, it was fun to do it, fun to make him blush and stutter over his words but Carl would always be more of a younger brother to her than a lover interest. 

 

She pulled on her tank top and a pair of her cut off shorts and ran down the two flights of stairs, possibly waking everyone else up witht the stomping of her feet. Just was she was about to run out of the metal doors, Daryl came through them, knocking them both to their feet. 

 

“Damn Beth! You ever watch where you’re goin’!” He yelled grumpily. 

 

“I- I’m sorry, Carl told me to come outside, I didn’t think anyone else was awake.” She mumbled getting her feet, her cheeks flushed. 

 

“I was out tendin’ to the horses, you and your sister can’t be the only people who do that around here. Sorry.” He muttered and swiftly maneuvered his way past Beth and disappearing into his room just around the corner. 

 

Beth felt stupid and angry at herself now, here Daryl was the only person who she thought could possible be her future baby’s daddy and she was just running around making a fool out of herself. She bit her lip and stomped the rest of the way to the garden. 

 

“What’s wrong?” Carl asked knitting his eyebrows together with concern.

 

“Nothin’ just bumped into Daryl, embarrassed myself.” She huffed. Carl knew of her attraction to Daryl, it only bothered him a bit, he thought that Beth should be with him or Noah, not some guy that was around his dad’s age. 

 

“Daryl just a grump, you know that.” Carl shrugged. “Wanna eat some strawberries?” he held up a strawberry with a mischievous grin on his face. 

 

“Of course.” She held out her hand for the berry. 

 

Carl shook his head. “Only for a kiss though.” He teased, smiling widely at her. 

 

“Carl Grimes, you give me that strawberry!” She shook her head giggling, this was the type of flirting that usually went on between the two. 

 

“I said for a kiss.” Beth knew that there were other strawberries, a batch was just behind Carl. But she wanted to play his little game, tease him just a bit. 

 

Carl was still young but he was already taller than her, just like his daddy was. he held the strawberry up over his head like it was a mistletoe. She walked over to him, their noses practically touching. Carl can feel her breath on his chin, he looks down at her and a smile breaks across her face, he has to control the hard-on that’s trying to grow in his pants.

 

“You gon’ kiss me or what?” She asked in a sultry tone.

 

He breathed in her sent and moved into kiss her, his lips brushed across hers when she began tickling him, causing him to fall to the ground in a laughing fit. Beth was on top of him, wrestling him for the strawberry that hopefully wasn’t squashed in his hand now. Carl was stronger than Beth though, he forced her on the ground and pinned her hands underneath his. 

 

“Why do you always do that!” He laughed, still out of breath. 

 

“Because it’s so easy.” She smirked.

 

“You promised me a kiss.” He whined playfully. 

 

“And you promised me a strawberry.” She mocked him. 

 

“I said a kiss for a strawberry.” He raised his eyebrow at her, knowing that he could take the kiss from her right now if he wanted to but he wasn’t one to take without permission. 

 

“Fine. A peck Carl, and I mean a peck!” Beth laughed. She puckered her lips and Carl’s breath caught again. He moved in to kiss her. 

 

“Carl, where are those strawberries!” His father’s voice rang from the house. He jumped off of Beth quickly feeling like he had been caught doing something that he wasn’t suppose to do. Beth laughed loudly, laughing on the ground still. She felt bad for the boy. 

 

“Comin’ dad.” He yelled back angrily. 

 

“Well, you lost your chance.” She smiled smugly and picked the strawberry from off the ground and then scooped up Judith who had gotten strawberry all over her face. 

 

“What are you doin’?” She asked the two year old. 

 

“Eatin’ strooberries.” She yelled happily.

 

“Those are for breakfast!” Beth said pretending to be upset with the girl. 

 

“No they not, they for me!” 

 

“Sure sure. You can have all the strooberies you want.” Carl yelled as he walked back to the house. 

 

Beth shook her head and smiled at the baby. “Come on, let’s go get some eggs.”

_________________________________________________________________________

 

Breakfast, lunch and Dinner and the meetings that Rick would call were the only time that they all were together, everyone had their own thing to do now. Beth sat next to Noah, who ate happily and Daryl who never spoke a word to her. She looked at the baby boy that Rick and Michonne had had, his name was Jamie and he was perfect. Beth’s heart sank as she looked at Michonne feed the precious thing. 

 

“I want a baby.” Beth said louder than she thought. 

 

“No you do not.” Rosita complained. “This is horrible, I just keep throwing up and I feel like I should never eat because all I am doing is wasting resources.”

 

“It gets hard Bethy.” A swollen version of Maggie said from across the table. 

 

“And the cravings!” Sasha complained. 

 

“I know but you all are pregnant and I don’t want to have to wait two more years and then have a baby! I want one so badly. I know I’d be a good momma.” She whined. 

 

Beth was the little sister of the group, she knew it, it wasn’t like it was before though, they knew that she was tough and that she could do more than just watch the babies. But people still loved to think of her as innocent, as there own teenager. 

 

“Well, pick your man Beth.” Rick said half jokingly. 

 

“You got, me, Carl, Daryl- if he can even still have kids, Ty, and Eugene.” Noah said throwing the joke Daryl’s way knowing damn well that Daryl does not like the kid. 

 

Beth looked at Daryl, she remembered the time that they had had at the moonshine shack and the funeral home, she wished that she was never taken from that place, they would probably be in love and Beth would be pregnant by now. 

 

“Beth you don’t need to get pregnant.” Glenn said. 

 

“Why not?” She challenged him. “We need to start repopulating, and right now Rick is the only one with the gene pool. Maggie’s pregnant, I just, I’m alone ya know?” She practically whispered. 

 

“Do you really want a baby? Cause I’d be glad to help with that.” Carl said from beside Abraham. 

 

“Didn’t you hear her son? Your daddy's got enough of his gene we don’t need no more.” Abraham joked. 

 

“So that rules Carl out.” Tara said. “What about Eugene?”

 

“No offense Beth but you are not my type.” 

 

“Yeah, you’re more into lesbians.” Noah joked, everyone laughed at that. “So there’s me, Daryl and Ty.”

 

“No thanks, Sasha’s pulling in my gene.” Ty said bowing out. 

 

“Me and Daryl.” Noah said anxiously. 

 

“Daryl.” Beth surprised herself. Everyone was surprised. 

 

They all looked at each other, Daryl continued eating his food. “Well?” Rick said looking at Daryl.

 

“Well what?” He asked, as if he hadn’t been listening in on their entire conversation.

 

“You wanna get Beth pregnant?”

 

Daryl looked around the room, he was playing it cool but in reality, his heart was pumping and his was starting to sweat at the thought of him making love to Beth and them having a baby together. 

 

“I dunno.” 

 

“So it’s not a no?” Beth asked anxiously.

 

“It’s a maybe.” He shrugged.


	2. Moving on up

Beth’s head was racing with all sorts of thoughts, she was thinking about what Daryl had said, maybe. Was he sure? What did maybe mean? Was he just saying that so that she wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of all these people? She was so confused that she didn’t even notice when she sliced her palm open with the kitchen knife she was cleaning. 

 

“Geez Beth.” Tyreese, who had been washing the dishes with her, grabbed her wrist and ran it under the hot water. 

 

“Ow, ow, ow!” She howled as the hot water ran into her cut.

 

“Don’t be a baby.” He chuckled. He took her hand out from under the water and examined it. “Doesn’t look that bad, why don’t you go on to the infirmary room, get some bandages, I can take care of this here.” He nodded and shooed her away. 

 

She tried to hold her hand as best she could but she saw the little beads of blood drop onto the white tile floors, she was glad they didn’t have carpet. The infirmary room was just an over sized bathroom basically, they had a shower in there, a gurney, a large sink and a lot of bandages and medicine. She grabbed the wrap bandages and started circling it around her cut. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she was putting the wrap bandages away. 

 

The scar above her eye was silvery, every time she raised her eyebrow it crinkled and was more visible. The one under her eye was pink, it hadn’t healed properly after all the times that Dawn had made the wound reopen. She hated thinking about that woman and all the things that she did to her, Beth was so glad that Daryl had shot her before Dawn had gotten the chance to kill her. She was stupid for stabbing her, she knew that but she needed her dead and she knew that Rick and the others were going to let her live. 

 

“You okay?” Daryl asking standing in the doorway of the infirmary room. 

 

“Yeah.” She smiled nervously. “I just cut my hand with the kitchen knife, wasn’t paying attention.” She shrugged and turned away from him. Things hadn’t been the same since they parted in the funeral home. He was detached from her, afraid to reconnect with her and make things bad. 

 

“You clean it?” He asked. 

 

“Ty ran it under some hot water, I should be fine, I had soap on my hands any way.”

 

“So bout this thing, you wantin’ to have a baby and all. Why do you want me to be the father?” Daryl spoke quietly, never taking his eyes off of his hands. 

 

“At the funeral home, we had somethin’ and I know it. You were gonna tell me somethin’ that night and you didn’t get to. Daryl the truth is I was fallin’ in love with you before Dawn and them took me away. I wanted to tell you but I wanted you to love me first so that you wouldn’t think I was some kind of kid with a crush, I was only nineteen then but I’m older now and I know what I want.” All of the words came crashing out of her mouth and onto the floor in front of her, she was speaking so fast that she barely knew what was coming out. 

 

“Beth I felt something too but that was over two years ago, we don’t know if we feel the same, we’re not in the same situation anymore. Sooner or later we’re goin’ to start bringin’ more people in and then you probably won’t even care about me anymore.” He shrugged, he knew it was true, how could someone ever love him.

 

“Daryl that isn’t true! Don’t say that! I have always loved you, I see you all the time and I always wish that I was with you, I’m always wishin’ that you’re mine and I’m yours. You’re so withdrawn the only person I see you talkin’ to is Rick and Carol and sometimes some of the others but other than that you’re too yourself and I hate that.” Beth felt her eyes get watery. “I miss you. I miss how you held my hand, I miss how you would make fun of me and I wish that you would just hold me.” The tears were rolling down her face now. 

 

“Beth, don’t… don’t cry.” He moved slowly over to her, he wasn’t sure what to do but he wrapped his arms lightly around her and she sobbed into his chest. It felt right, holding her like this. He loved it. 

 

“So Daryl, will you please, just marry me or somethin’? I want this baby and I want you.” She sobbed. 

 

He thought about it, he thought about what it would be like to be married and he thought that well hell, there aren’t that many more women around and he did like Beth. She was pretty and smart and tough, he could marry her. He could love her. 

 

“We gotta do this whole couple thing first. I wanna see how it will work out, okay?” 

 

“We can’t exactly go on dates, ya know?” She laughed a bit. 

 

“I know but we can move in together and see how life is.” He shrugged, not really wanting to let her go but he knew that she was getting excited and any moment now she was going to break away from his embrace. 

 

“Okay.” She fell back into him, this time wrapping her arms around him. “Are you moving in with me or?”

 

“I guess I’ll move in with you.” He shrugged not really caring, he only had a few things like clothes and a couple of weapons, he didn’t mind moving up with her.

 

“Great.” Beth smiled brightly and pulled away from him. “I’m happy that you wanna be with me.”

 

He shrugged. “You’re amazing Daryl Dixon.” She stood on her tippy toes and kissed his cheek. “Come up when you’re ready. I’ll be in the garden for a while and then I have to go clean up the horse stalls. Make yourself at home. “


	3. Stolen kisses and naked images

Her room was nice, it was filled with books, some stuffed animals and a stack of notebooks that Daryl didn’t know she kept. One thing he didn’t like was the mirror, why the hell the ceiling was the a mirror he did not know, that was a safety hazard at best. Daryl saw the way that Beth would flinch away from her reflection and the way that she never really liked looking at herself, it bothered her. 

 

Daryl began setting his stuff down wherever he could, he didn’t want to mess up Beth’s set up of her things. He couldn’t help but notice how big Beth’s bed was, there would definitely be enough space for the both of them without even touching each other. His brain pictured Beth laying on the bed with nothing but the white sheet of the bed covering her body, he rolled his eyes and layed on the bed, he was not going to have sex with Beth on the first night, no matter how badly he was tempted. 

 

She was so secluded up here, no one else was on the third floor except for Carl but he was at the other end of the hall. Rick and Michonne had set up downstairs, along with Maggie and Glenn. Abraham and Rosita on the middle floor with the others, now Daryl’s room was open downstairs and he was sure that Michonne and Rick would set Judy up in there now. They had been wanting her to get her own room but they wanted her close by. 

 

Beth’s scent was all over the covers, she had her own watermelon shampoo and peach soap, she always smelled so sweet. Daryl realized the balcony door was open when he heard a loud squeal, he knew it was probably Beth or Judith laughing but he still wanted to see what was happening. He walked over to the balcony and leaned against the railing. Beth and Carl were out wrestling in the garden again, this time Noah was there now, instigating it all. 

 

Those boys always had a thing for Beth, she was pretty and sweet, everything that you would want in a girl, she just had a bit too much sass for Daryl’s taste. He knew they wanted to be with her and he knew damn well that Carl’s offer to have sex with Beth wasn’t fake and he saw the look of disappointment on Noah’s face when she picked Daryl and not him. Why she did that infront of everyone, Daryl didn’t know, maybe it was to make him feel more obligated to say yes, or maybe it was because she was looking at all those pregnant ladies and the babies and just said it. 

 

He watched as Carl kissed Beth sweetly on the lips, he didn’t feel angry, he actually felt amuse. Somehting inside of him knew that Beth only saw Carl as something to toy with, something to keep herself amused. The boys left her alone after that and she got to picking the fruit and vegetables and putting them in her basket, a cute smile on her face. 

 

“Beth!” He called out. She looked around for him and then looked up to her balcony. She stood and ran closer to the house so she wouldn’t have to yell so loudly. 

 

“Daryl.” She smiled brightly, liking the view of him on her balcony. 

 

“I saw that kiss, you cheatin’ on me already?” He teased her. 

 

“Course not, he just wanted a kiss is all.” She saw the edges of his mouth turn up and caught on to his playful banter.

 

“Yeah well if we’re goin’ to be together, you can’t be kissin’ no more boys.” He began wagging his finger at her. She bursted out laughing.

 

“Okay hun, I promise.” Daryl found himself laughing. He stopped almost immediately after he noticed how comfortable he was, it felt like the time that he and Beth had been apart, hadn’t even happened at all.

 

“I’m gonna go out on a run, you want anythin’?” 

 

“Yeah, you mind gettin’ me a notebook and some more blankets?”

 

“Sure thing.”

 

Daryl left the balcony and went around asking the others what they needed, Rosita wanted some wine, Abraham said he’d some with him, needed to get away from all these pregnant women. Glenn would come along too, he needed to get more things for the baby since Maggie was so close. Rick needed some more diapers and if they could, find some more water, it hadn’t rained in a while and there water silow was running dangerously low. 

 

“Hey Daryl.” Rick said before Daryl could leave his room. 

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You sure bout this Beth thing?” Rick placed his hands on his hips and then shifted his weight to the other foot, something he always did when he was thinking about something important to him. 

 

“Yeah, I mean why not? She wants a baby I can give her that.”

 

“She wants more than a family Daryl, she wants family.” Rick pointed out. 

 

“I can give her that too, I’ll be there, I’ll be a …. dad.” He shrugged. 

 

“Good, I just want you to know what you’re getting yourself into, ya know?” 

 

“I got you Rick, I got Beth.” He nodded. 

 

Rick nodded and let Daryl be. As Daryl rode in the car with the two other men he thought about what Rick had said, he knew that Beth wanted him to marry her and he knew that Beth wanted him to help her have a baby. He guessed that meant she wanted him to be a dad and start a family. Daryl could do that, he could be a dad, he could love Beth, neither task seemed too hard for him to do. Making once they got down to the actual sex part it would be hard, it had been a while since he had sex. 

 

“Pull up here, Walmart shouldn’t be too bad right?” Glenn said from the backseat. Abraham pulled into the walmart and the men got out of the car. 

 

Walkers were inside, they could tell that by the smell. Daryl tapped on the glass with the end of his knife and seconds later walkers started moaning and slamming themselves against the glass. “We don’t even know if there is much in there.” Abraham said, not liking how loud the walkers were, there had to be more than one by the sound of them. 

 

“And we don’t even know if there’s nothin’ in there.” Daryl pointed out to Abraham, resources were getting low everywhere, people had raided every place and survived as long as they had but Daryl was sure that not that many people were left living and who knows, maybe there was some more stuff in here, it was a big Wal-mart. 

 

“We let them out one at a time, that’s how this is going to work.” Glenn said. 

 

“Alright. Glenn, you’re gonna be the door opener, Me and Abraham got this.”

 

They followed through with Glenn’s plan and managed to take out all the walkers that were inside, there were about ten of them, looked like a group of people were holding up in there and then one of them got bitten or something. “In and out, ten minutes, don’t mess this up, there’s not enough of us for one of us to get bitten okay?” Daryl warned. The other men nodded and they went there separarte ways, grabbing shopping carts and heading off. 

 

Daryl headed towards the baby section, luckily there were still diapers, not many people were having babies around this time. He took all the diapers that were there, they were going to need as much as they could get with all the pregnant women around. Luckily all the women decided that it was easier to breat feed than to not, so they didn’t need that disgusting formula stuff. Then he headed off to get Beth’s notebooks, he got her a few and a couple of packs of pens, figured she’s like the extra gifts. 

 

“Got the diapers.” Daryl yelled to the others, they did this on the runs now, yelled to each other every few minutes to make sure they were okay and if one didn’t sound off than all the others went on the alert. 

 

“Got the Water!” Glenn yelled. 

 

“Got the Wine.” Abraham sounded off. 

 

“Make sure that we got all that we can, do another round and see if there is anything useful, we could use some more bullets and pain pills, also the women are gonna start havin’ their time of the month again so stock up on those.” Daryl grimaced. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________

Beth was in the shower when Daryl had gotten back, she was waiting to make lunch for them all until they got back. Daryl came into her room and heard the shower running. “Beth you in there?” He asked. 

 

“Yeah.” The water turned off, Beth had an idea that could possibly backfire on her. She got out of the shower and dried her hair and body off as quick as she could, with her hair still dripping she stepped out of the bathroom, buttt naked and found Daryl sitting on the edge of her bed. 

 

“Oh- I’m sorry.” Daryl stood and turned. 

 

“No,” she grabbed his hand. “it’s fine, we’re suppose to be a couple right, you can see me naked.” She giggled anxiously. 

 

“Okay.” 

 

Daryl took her in, starting from her dripping hair to her pink toenails. She had small breasts but Daryl didn’t mind they were still perky and breasts, what he didn’t expect to see was that Beth had been shaving her pubic hair, there was no hair down there. He bit the inside of his cheek. 

 

“I got your notebooks.” He said awkwardly, pointing to the new stack of notebooks and the pack of pens on top of them.

 

“Thanks, my old one was about to run out of pages and my pen was running out of ink.” She casually stroked the corner of the books. 

 

“You mind getting dressed?” He asked, Beth’s face fell some. “It ain’t that I don’t like seein’ you like this it’s just that anyone could walk in at any minute and I don’t like the idea of someone seeing us like this.” 

 

“Oh okay.” Beth sighed and went into her closet, she pulled on a sundress, something simple and nothing that she had to wear any underwear with. “Is this better?” She asked smiling a bit. 

 

Daryl just nodded. “I gotta start making lunch.” She let her hand slide across his knee as she went past him. 

 

Beth was gone, she had closed the door behind him. It had taken every ounce of strength in him not to pick her up and make her his. A boner was forming in his pants, he began stroking himself when he was safely behind the locked doors of Beth’s bathroom. That image was going to haunt him for the rest of his being. 

 

Downstairs Beth started making Fruit salad for everyone, it was the only thing that the pregnant women could stomach and they had a hefty breakfast, a light lunch wouldn’t hurt anyone. Tara helped her along with Carl. 

 

“So, do you think this thing with you and Carl is going to work out?” Tara asked honestly interested in what Beth had to say. 

 

“I think so, I just have to figure him out ya know? He’s a mystery sometimes, you gotta feel around him. Once you make him uncomfortable he shuts down but once he gets used to you he becomes a whole different person.” She explained, more or less talking to herself. 

 

“It’s good that you guys were separated together I guess, you know I see the way he looks at you, I’ve caught him staring at you a time or too.” Tara smiled at Beth. 

 

“We were close once.” Beth spoke softly, remembering the time that they had burned down the moonshine shack, the time that they made a stranger's grave her father's and the time that he had given her a piggy back ride. That stupid dog. 

 

“I think we’re done here, it looks good to me.” Carl said as he finished putting together the last plate. 

 

“Yep, I’ll go knock on everyone's door.” Beth offered. “You two can set the table.” 

 

She went and knocked on everyone's door, yelling the world lunch into them and then moving onto the next. When she got back to her room she found Daryl laying on her bed, his eyes closed, looking as though he might be asleep. 

 

“Daryl?” She spoke softly, not wanting to wake him if he was asleep, he was awake early this morning and it was the middle of the afternoon he was bound to be tired by now. 

 

“Yeah?” He shot up and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand.

 

“What are you thinkin’ about?” Beth asked him, sitting by him on her bed, her knee touching his. 

 

“I dunno.” He shrugged and looked down at the young blonde. “I’m thinkin’ about how you don’t like pickled pigs feet.” He chuckled softly.

 

“You ate nearly the whole jar.” She laughed.

 

“They’re good, you were missin’ out.” 

 

“Do you think that we would be closer if we had stayed together, if I hadn’t gone outside like you told me too?” She asked so quiet that she could barely hear herself speak the words, but Daryl heard everyone. 

 

“I dunno, you might be dead, we might have lost each other again, I dunno Beth.” Daryl didn’t like thinking about this, he always thought and felt that it was his fault that she was gone, that she was stolen right from him. He had told her to go in, he was the one who was going to let that mutt in. He caused her to be stolen.

 

What Daryl didn’t know though was that only one that looked for her, that he was the only one that knew she could survive on her own. He never stopped looking, that white cross was burned into his brain and he wouldn’t forget it until he found her. 

 

Beth laid down on the bed and pulled Daryl down with her, they layed there like they had layed in the grass that one time after running for so long. Beth turned her head and looked at Daryl, he did the same. 

 

“I love you.” She said, more to herself than to him. She had always known that she had strong feelings for Daryl but what she didn’t realize was that she loved him, she had always loved him.

 

“Beth don’t say that.”

 

“Why not?” She was puzzled.

 

Because he knew that he loved her, he knew that she was the only one for him, that she was the only person here on Earth that didn’t kill for evil, that still gave him hope, that made him feel things that he had never felt before. She was his forever but he didn’t want to say it yet, he didn’t want to say it and then have her not feel the same, because once you say something it becomes real.

 

“I dunno.” He looked back up at the mirrored ceiling, at the both of them laying on the bed, he face looking at him, twisted into confused and angry scowl. 

 

“I love you.” 

 

“Stop.”

 

“I love you.” She sat up. “I love you.” She rolled over on top of him. “I love you Daryl Dixon and you can’t make me not say it.” 

 

Beth laid there on top of him, listening to his heart beating and him breathing. It felt like several minutes had passed before he finally said it. “I love you too.”


	4. Sleeping arrangements

Daryl had agreed to share the room with Beth, he had agreed to marry her if all of this all worked out but he wouldn’t have agreed to any of it if he knew that he’d have a raging boner from watching her get dressed from the bed, he knew she deliberately left the door open to tease him. She crawled under the covers and blew out the candles beside the bed. 

 

Daryl slipped off his jeans under the covers, that left him in his boxers and his white wife beater. Beth had turned over, facing him with her eyes closed looking like she might already be asleep. Her breathing was even and her lips were parted slightly. He could kiss her, he could probably do whatever he want with her but he wasn’t going to do that. He turned around begrudgingly with a sigh and forced his eyes closed, hopefully he’d find himself asleep soon. 

 

Warm arms were wrapped around her when she woke up, some time during the night Beth and Daryl had tangled their bodies together. Her legs were intertwined with his, he was holding her close to his chest and her fingers were locked together behind his back. She stared at him for a while, she didn’t mind the morning breath that much because he looked so peaceful when he slept. 

 

Her eyes caught their reflection in the ceiling, she looked up and thought about how she looked. Her blonde hair was a crows nest, her face was a little puffy due to the fact that she had probably slept with her face crushed against Daryl’s chest all night. She never liked how she looked so she settled for staring at Daryl. He had strong arms and a very tanned body due to working outside so much, the summer days got hot here, wherever they were. 

 

His body began to stir and he pulled her closer to him, still sleeping. Beth tried to stifle a laugh but it still slipped out and Daryl blinked awake. “Oh hey, sorry.” He let go of her and tried to push himself as far away from her as he could without falling off the bed. He was so embarrassed with himself, when did he start holding her like that?

 

“It’s fine. How’d you sleep?” She asked, a bright smile on her face, Daryl’s heart was beating fast. 

 

“I slept well.” Better than he had most nights infact. 

 

“That’s good. I’m going to get in the shower, it’s Michonne and Noah’s turn to make the breakfast so we can go out if you like?” She asked slipping out of the bed, her pink silk nightgown sticking to her body, showing off her hardened nipples.

 

“Uhm yeah sure, where we gonna go?” 

 

“We can go out riding today? It’s pretty earlier and we need to start getting those horses trained to let people ride them.” It was something that Beth had been meaning to do for a while now, but with Maggie pregnant it was hard to do much with them. 

 

“Alright.” 

 

“After breakfast though, it will take us a while to get those horses ready, they get spooked easily.”

 

“I know.” 

 

“Alright, see you at breakfast, you can use the shower after me, I’m real quick.” The spaghetti straps slipped off her shoulders and the gown fell to the floor, revealing Beth’s breast to him once again, this man was going to go mad. He bit the inside of his cheek and looked up at the ceiling but that didn’t help since it was a mirror. He caught Beth’s smile and the way she slinked into the shower. He needed a cold shower now.

 

Breakfast was nice. They ate scrambled eggs and strawberries, they would need to find some more animals or they were going to end up being vegetarians. Daryl would start looking for them after he and Beth got done with the horses. She sat next to Daryl again, smelling clean and fresh, her hair still slightly dripping.

 

“So what are the plans for today?” Rick asked. 

 

“I’ve decided that we need more animals, I’m tired of only eatin’ eggs and fruit and every once in awhile chicken. We need some meat.”

 

“I agree with you there brother, I’ll help you. Abraham, Eugene and Carl I would like if the three of you would help too. We’re probably going to be out there for a while so we’ll need all the manpower we can get.”

 

“Sure thing dad.” Carl nodded.

 

“I can say that I’ll join.”

 

“Same, I’m tired of eggs too.” 

 

“We’ll finish up breakfast and then be on our way-”

 

“Rick, I promised Beth that I’d start helpin’ her train the horses today, we’ll go after lunch.” Daryl interrupted. 

 

“Sure thing.” Rick looked at his brother with raised eyebrows, he never thought Daryl would give up tracking for Beth, never thought that a woman would come first for Daryl. It made Rick happy, he finally found something that made him as happy as his own wife did. 

 

___________________________________________________________________________

 

“My ass is hurtin’!” Daryl yelled to Beth who was riding happily on her horse in front of him. 

 

She laughed into the wind. “That’s bound to happen.” She yelled behind her, Daryl was good at horse riding he just wasn’t used to riding them for so long. It was worse than when he would ride his motorcycle down a busy highway. 

 

Beth managed to get her wild horse to slow down to a trot so Daryl could catch up. They were having a nice time, Daryl even talked a little about Merle which told Beth that was starting to open up to her. He was regretting riding that horse for so long though, he knew he’d have issues walking when they went on their trip later today. After two hours of riding, Beth decided that the horses had enough training today and that they should spend the rest of the afternoon doing something else. 

 

“What else are we gonna do?” Daryl asked sliding down the horse.

 

“I don’t know, we can talk about things, get to know each other a little more.” Beth shrugged. 

 

“Alright. What cha wanna know?” 

 

“How old are you?” 

 

“I’m guessing that I’m about to hit forty.” 

 

“And now I’m guessing that I am into oldies.” Beth teased bumping into him lightly. 

 

“Yeah yeah.” He snorted. “I’m guessing that makes me a pedophile then.” 

 

“Nah, I’m twenty. I’m a woman now.” She nodded her head. 

 

“Do you miss your daddy?” He asked her. 

 

“Well obviously. I miss him a lot, I don’t miss him makin’ us read the bible every day though but other than that yeah, I miss him a lot.” 

Every day Beth thought about her daddy, she missed him a lot. He had meant the world to her after she had lost her momma and after she had the scare when Hershel had got bitten. 

 

“I miss him too. You probably didn’t know that but yeah, I miss ‘em too.”

 

“Do you wanna be a daddy?” She asked Daryl, not really thinking about the current situation they were in but honestly wanting to know if he wanted to be a dad.

 

“I mean yeah, I practically am one with Judith, Rick made me her and Carl’s godfather. So I hope nothin’ happens to him.” Daryl let out a little chuckle. 

 

“I didn’t know that.” She smiled at him. 

 

“Yeah, we’re closer than we let on.” 

 

“I guess that’s nice, you’d think that Maggie and I are close but not really, she cares more about Glenn than anything else really. I don’t mind it either but we’re really not that close, never have been, I think I remind her of daddy and she doesn’t like that.” Beth sighed. 

 

“Yeah, Merle and I were never really close growing up either, he’d be around sixt now, can you believe that man? He was an old fart. He left home right around the time that I was born, he cam by every once in awhile, for me. He didn’t like our dad, neither did I for a while but my dad ended up sobering up and we got close again, I was out on a hunting trip with him when all this happen. My dad got bit, nothin’ I could do. I went and found Merle, he had been locked up at the time, nothin’ serious though. We found each other and then we found Lori and them. Merle was never really a good person. I think that’s why he went out the way he did.” 

 

“Yeah, my daddy told me what happened, he heard it from Rick who obviously heard it from you. I think he did it to try and prove himself, I think he knew he was trouble and that he wasn’t ever goin’ to not be trouble. He loved you though, I could tell he did.” She looked at him in a way that no one had ever looked at him before. Never with pity or sorrow but a look that said exactly what she was saying. 

 

Daryl was done thinking about sad things. “So you really wanna be a momma?” He raised an eyebrow at her. 

 

“Oh my god yes!” She sighed loudly. “You don’t know what it’s like takin’ care of other people’s babies and watching all these pregnant women with their glow. It’s toture.” Daryl thought about it, he hadn’t really seen them glowing but he knew they were looking different, for instance all of them were starting to swell up and get crankier. 

 

“Well I can tell you’d be a good momma.” He nodded at her. 

 

“And I can tell that you’d be a good daddy.” She smiled brightly at him. 

 

“We start headin’ back to the house, I gotta start gettin’ the supplies ready and you gotta start makin’ lunch.” 

 

“Sure thing. Daryl?” She stopped him when the got to the front door. 

 

“Yeah?” He looked down at her confused. 

 

“Can I have a kiss, I know how you are about bein’ physical and I get it if you don’t want-”

 

Daryl kissed her, he knew that if he didn’t she’d just keep on talking and wouldn’t stop. So he placed his lips to hers and once she realized what was happening she kissed him back. It was probably one of the nicest sensations that Daryl had felt in while, her lips were soft against his chapped once and she smelled so nice.

 

Beth was the one to pull away. “Thank you.” Her cheeks were flushed as she ran inside and Daryl went upstairs for another session in Beth’s bathroom.


	5. Night time shots

They had managed to find a couple of rabbits and had managed to trap them, they found a few wild pigs, two females and one male. Daryl was so happy that they had found them, now in a couple of weeks he wouldn’t just be eating eggs and fruit for breakfast, instead he might be able to have bacon. They all were dirty and sweating, they wanted to get home to their wives and children and eat. 

 

Dayl was happy when he walked inside the house and the smell from their stove oven hit his nose, it smelled like they were cooking chicken tonight and he couldn’t be happier about it. His stomach growled but he knew he’d have to take a shower first, he probably smelled like shit and looked like it too. 

 

He went upstairs to his and Beth’s room and started taking off his clothes, figuring that Beth was in the kitchen helping prepare the food. Boy was he wrong. Beth stepped out of the bathroom just as Daryl was coming into it. He wore nothing while she wore only a towel wrapped around her upper body. 

 

Daryl covered his penis. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t know that you’d be in here, I thought you were in the kitchen.”

 

“I was dirty from preparing the chicken so I thought I’d clean up before dinner.” Beth’s eyes wandered down the man's body, looking at all of his features, his scars, his muscles, his ass. “You know you don’t have to cover yourself.” Daryl still didn’t move his hands from his cock. 

 

“I don’t know.” he shrugged awkwardly. 

 

Beth reached out and moved his hand from his penis. Daryl looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath, he knew that this world wasn’t the one that they lived in over three years ago, things now were either make it or break it. He and Beth had a right to move fast, who knew what tomorrow would hold but he was still anxious at this young pretty girl seeing him naked and vulnerable.

 

It didn’t surprise him very much when Beth took her towel off, it did surprise him when she put her body against his, he could feel her nipples pressing against his chest, shivers were sent down his spine. Beth grabbed at his chin and pulled his face down to hers. She kissed him, sweetly and lightly.

 

“It’s okay. We’re okay.” She kissed him once more and then backed away into her closet, she got dressed for dinner. Daryl went to the shower and found himself jacking off again. God this girl was turning him on more than anyone ever had. 

 

Dinner was nice, the chicken tasted so good, Beth and the others couldn’t help but savor it as best as the could. “I missed chicken!” Carl yelled out, the others laughed and hummed in agreement. 

 

“I’m glad we got those animals today, hopefully soon we’ll be able to eat meat more than once a month now.” Sasha said in between bites. 

 

“This is a nice meal, the baby is enjoying it I can tell.” Maggie hummed out. “Speakin’ of the baby, he or she is due anytime now and I want all of us to be here, so for the next week or so I don’t want anyone goin’ out unless we absolutely need too.”

 

“I think all of us are prepared to help you give birth Maggie but do you really think you need everyone to be here? Trust me when you’re giving birth the more people around you the more you feel annoyed.” Michonne said recalling her experience. Carl had been right in her ear, urging her to push, Rick was freaking out, thinking about Lori’s birth experience and the others kept coming in and out of the room wondering if she needed anything. 

 

“We’ve picked the god parents.” Glenn said changing the topic. In this world godparents were a necessity. “Beth and Daryl, if you will be.” He motioned towards them

 

“Of course!” Beth’s voice rang out and all Daryl could think about was the fact that he was also the godfather to Carl, Jamie and Judith, now he could add another on his list. 

 

“I doubt anything will happen to Mrs. Rhee over here though.” Bob laughed remembering the time that they were separated together. 

 

“Feisty one she is.” Sasha agreed. 

 

“I’m upset that no one has made me their God parent!” Carol scoffed. “I mean come on! Daryl’s got four kids and Eugene and Tara are going to have one, and now Ty is going to have one, I’m the only one here without one.” She teased. 

 

“Tell you what, you can be the god mother.” Sasha said to Carol. 

 

“Thank you.” She smiled at the girl and at Ty. After everything that the two of them had been through together at least Carol knew that the both of them would survive together. 

 

Suddenly something ruined their talking, there was a hard knock at the door. Everyone jumped and became quiet. Rick wasted no time. “Beth, Maggie, Rosita get upstairs now, the rest of you, arm yourselves.”

 

“Come one Maggie.” She hurriedly helped the two pregnant women out of their chairs. 

 

“Glenn, Bob and Daryl, go out the back, Michonne, take the children to the third floor and secure the room. Sasha, Abraham and I will see who or what is at the door. Carol, go to the roof with the sniper. Noah, Carl get to the second floor with the rifles.” 

 

The women ran up the stairs, hating that they weren’t able to help and that they knew they wouldn’t be any use right now. Beth’s heart leapt as she saw Daryl and the others head for the back door. She had to be strong now, all of this stress could send both Maggie and Rosita into early labor, she needed to be calm for the both of them. 

 

Once upstairs beth barricaded the door, the woman and children always stayed in different rooms, if the found the woman first then they would expect the children to be with them but since they weren’t there was no use in looking for children. Beth handed each woman a handgun that was hidden in the top of the closet. 

 

“It’s okay guys, we’re goin’ to be o-” POW! POW!

 

The women stifle their screams with their hand. They hadn’t had any trouble in so long, they hadn’t used their guns inside the gates in so long. This was a nightmare. 

 

Gunshots became the only thing that we could hear, Beth and the other women were desperate. They didn’t know what to do, surely they could do more than just sit around and wait for the men to come back and tell them that it was safe to come out. 

 

“I’ve gotta make sure that they’re okay.” Beth said.

 

“Beth, you can’t go out there, I’m sure they’re fine.” Maggie tried to keep her sister here, in front of her and safe.

 

“No, Maggie, let her go. She could be an asset to them.” Rosita said. 

 

“Be careful and quiet, here take my gun too.” Maggie gave her her gun and Beth placed it in her pants. 

 

“Alright, keep the door locked and stay away from it. Do not get in front of the door.” She warned. The two women nodded and Beth opened the door. 

 

It was quiet in the hallway, Beth looked down the to the first floor and could see that the door was wide open, had someone gotten in? Down on the second floor she could hear the gunshots, she went to far right side of the hall to see either Carl or Noah. 

 

She found Noah, looking out the window and shooting his rifle. “Noah!” Noah turned with a start. 

 

“Beth! I nearly shot you!” He cried out and then put his attention back out the window. 

 

“What’s goin’ on!” She urged him looking out the window but seeing nothing, darkness had fallen fairly quickly. 

 

“Some people managed to get in, don’t know who, don’t know how but they’re in and we’re in trouble.” He sounded panicky. 

 

“Alright, is there anything I can do to help? You can go back to the room Beth!” 

 

“No! You guys need the extra help, I’m going out there and I am helping.” 

 

“You are just going to get yourself killed!”

 

“Rather me than anyone else.”


	6. Rallying the troops

Rallying the troops

The sound of gunshots had ceased, Beth and Noah looked at each other in confusion. They both ran to the other end of the hall to check on Carl. He was looking out the window like the two of them were, trying to figure out what was going on. Footsteps could be heard walking up the steps of the house. All three of them ducked out of the view from downstairs.

 

“Now!” An unfamiliar voice yelled from downstairs. “I know there are at least three people were guns up here. Can I please know who they are?” 

 

None of them dared to move, Carol was still on the roof with her sniper, they hoped she wouldn’t decide to come down and give away their position. “Now come on, I have one of your men here, I will kill him if no one comes out. I will kill him unless at least two people come out. Five. Four. Three-”

 

“Stop!” Beth yelled pulling herself and Noah in view of the man who was holding a beaten Rick, captive. Carl stayed put, safely out of view. 

 

“Now, I know the rest of you have other men out there, as do I. And I know that Both of us are going too keep those people a secret, I can respect that. Name’s Negan.” The tall and rather built man said, never loosening his grip on the back of Rick’s neck. “I want you too throw your guns on the floor and kick them our way.” Beth and Noah looked at each other and dropped their guns, sending them his way. 

 

“What do you want?” Rick spat out.

 

“I want this place, you see things aren’t going to well for me and my men but this place, it looks like a fuckin’ palace!” He chuckled. “And your women ain’t that bad either. Bruce take this.” He flung Rick’s body at the man to the right of him, he snatched him up in the same position that Negan had had him. 

 

He got up in Beth’s face, examining her. Her brought his hand up to her face and squished her cheeks. “Nice and blonde. That’s how I like my women.” He breathed into her ear. 

 

“Yeah well I like my men how I like my walkers.” She took her knee up the man’s groin and as he looked at her in surprise and pain she took out her gun and put it against the bottom of his chin. “Dead.” She pulled the trigger. 

 

The other man pulled out his knife and placed it against Rick’s throat. “If any of you make so much as a-” An arrow went through the man's skull and the knife just nicked Rick’s neck. 

 

“There’s still more of them!” Daryl said as the man's dead body fell to the floor. “We need to get to the roof and try to take out the others.

 

Daryl had seen what Beth had done, he had been waiting patiently in the bushes for Negan to slip up but he was surprises when Beth took him out herself, he didn’t think that she could do a thing like that. Beth was used to being underestimated though, that’s why she threw herself and Noah out and not Carl. Just as Dawn had seen Noah and Beth as the weakest links in their group and decided to save them, Negan wouldn’t put his guard up around the two of them, they were weak to him. 

 

They made their way to the roof and shot for a while, it didn’t seem like the shooting would end and soon Beth ran out of bullets, they all did. They had to take it to the ground where now walkers had managed to get in through the open gate down the road and a few enemy humans lied in wait to kill them. 

 

It was dawn when they finished taking out the walkers and they had executed the rest of the strangers. At least they learned something from the attack, they weren’t the last ones alive and they weren’t the only ones who were willing to kill. 

 

Maggie had gone into early labor while all of them were on the roof still shooting. Beth, Glenn, Daryl and Abraham walked in on Maggie holding her crying baby to her breast, suckling her. Rosita’s hands were covered in blood and she looked exhausted. Maggie was sticky with sweat and the bloody baby was only making her look more horrid. 

 

“It’s a girl.” She laughed. 

 

“Is she okay!” Glenn yelled, tears rolling down his face as he slid to her side. 

 

“She’s perfectly fine, maybe two weeks early but I think she’s fine.” Beth said stroking the baby. Glenn stared at the baby with glee, a bright smile on his face despite it being covered in blood and sweat. 

 

“So what do we name her?” He asked. 

 

“Let’s call her Rose.” Maggie said looking over at Rosita who had helped her deliver the baby. 

 

“Thanks.” Rosita laughed breathlessly, her eyes still closed. 

 

“You okay hun?” Abraham asked her.

 

“Yeah that was just one of the most disgusting things I have ever done.” She nodded her head. 

 

“And you’ve bashed in rotting corpses heads.” Glenn chuckled. 

 

“Still worse.” She took in a deep breath and wiped her forehead. “Are we okay?”

 

They all looked at each other. Beth slipped her hand into Daryl’s intertwining their fingers. “We’re okay.” Beth said. 

 

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

Morning came sooner than they all thought it would. Burning the bodies of everyone took a while, getting ourselves cleaned up took even longer. Abraham had been shot in his arm and Rick needed to stay in bed for awhile so that he could heal correctly. A bullet had broken the skin on Daryl’s arm but he was okay. 

 

They all tried to go about their day like it was a normal one. Beth made everyone Breakfast, eggs and fruit again, but she was sure that they would all be happy just to have food. They didn’t eat together though. Rick ate in the infirmary room, Michonne ate the with children at the table, Carl ate on the roof, Abraham and Rosita ate in their room, Noah refused to eat and Maggie and Glenn ate together. 

 

Beth took her foot up to her room to eat, Daryl was out still, trying to find the weak spots in the gate and then trying to fix them up. She missed him already. Last night she had been so afraid that he was going to be taken from her again, but she put on a brave face unlike she had done all the other times and took one for the team. But right now she felt more alone than ever, when they would eat together in the mornings it was something special, it was like they were all together again, like the world was normal. It was all torn apart for the moment though. 

 

Daryl was out at the gate, staring at all the walkers that had piled up at the fence, he sighed and started them out, they hadn’t had this many walkers hear since they took them out the first time they got here. They hadn’t had trouble like that in so long that Daryl was actually scared, he didn’t know how to react at first, luckily he had Rick to throw orders at him. He had killed at least three people, it had been so long since he had killed people, it felt strange to him. 

 

They would need some metal sheets so that people couldn’t break through the bars again, they had rammed there car into the bars and they had been having such a good time in the house and the gate was so far away that they didn’t even hear it. They would be more precautious now, Daryl knew that. But he also knew that they needed more people to take care of this place, they needed more people to keep all of them safe just the sixteen of them, not counting the children, was not going to be enough. If Daryl could do it, he’d talk Rick into trying to find more people to bring in, but after this Daryl knew it would be hard work trying to get that to happen. 

 

He had given up trying to fix the gate completely, he covered the bigger spots and made sure that nothing from the outside could get in. Then he made his way to see Rick, who was still bleeding a bit and but was conscious and ready to get the place up and running again. He was fighting with Michonne who was trying to get him to lay back down when Daryl came into the room.

 

“Hey Rick.” He mumbled. “Can we get a minute?” 

 

Rick looked at Michonne who rolled her eyes and left, barely even giving Daryl a glance. 

 

“Rick we need to-”

“Daryl, I know what we need to do.” Rick interrupted. “We need a stronger gate, some alarms if possible and more lookouts, we’ve been playing it too safe.”

“Oh okay, so you wanna put a new Daddy one even more lookout time- you wanna send him back out there to get more supplies?” Dary said referring to Glenn. “You wanna put me, a fiance, out there again- after what just happened? You want to send Bob, someone who is completely worried about the future baby that is suppose to be comin’ out of his wife, out again? You want to start workin’ us to the bone, makin’ when really our main goal for this shit is to make it feel like home?” Daryl raised his voice. 

 

“So what do you suggest we do Daryl?” He scoffed, hating how true Daryl’s words were. 

 

“We need to bring more people in.”

 

“Absolutely not! Are you blind or did you not see what I saw today?”

 

“Those people were psycho’s they were also humans just tryin’ to find a place that they could be safe, just like we were. We didn’t go through with killin’ people for their land but when people are that desperate, they do desperate things. I think you know that.” 

 

Rick pondered this thought again. “If we bring more people in then we’ll be more paranoid than we were before.”

 

“And then when we learn to trust them we won't. Rick, we need this.” 

 

“We’re low on supplies as it is.”

 

“With more people we can farm more, we can start expandin’ we can make this place better. Who knows how many people are left out there.”

 

“Daryl, how do we know that these people, if we even find any, will be safe. We have children here.” 

 

“I’ll go scouting for people, me and a few others, any who volunteer. We’ll make this place better Rick.”   
“Fine, rally the troops. You aren’t going out today but we’ll start tomorrow, after everything is picked up around here.” 

 

“Oh and By the way Rick- you look like shit.” Daryl joked. 

 

“Feel like it too brother.”


	7. Keeping promises

Beth hated that Daryl was going out there, and to look for more people. She knew just as well as him that this place was way too big for all of them to just keep it safe but why did he have to go out? Why couldn’t someone else go out?

 

After dinner they barely spoke to one another, Daryl had announced that he was going out when the food was served. Nearly everyone in the room got quiet. But then of course, Abraham volunteered to Rosita’s distaste. Then Eugene and Tara volunteered. Glenn said that he would go but he had to be here for the baby, which Daryl respected. So those were the people that were going to stay gone maybe weeks at a time and then come back with strangers that we were suppose to trust. Beth didn’t like it. 

 

They laid in bed, Beth had her back turned towards Daryl and Daryl could sense that there was something wrong. He knew that she was mad at him for going off when he had promised her so much. He reached over and placed a warm hand on his shoulder, he felt her let out a breath of air. She turned around quickly and buried herself in Daryl’s chest. 

 

“Why do you have to go?” She asked him.

 

“Because I want us to be safe, I want people to be safe.” He whispered into her golden locks. 

 

“But you won't be safe out there and I won't be safe without you. It isn’t fair Daryl, you know that I can’t go with you and I know that you wouldn’t let me go with you even if could.” Beth whined. 

“Beth, I’ll be back.I promise you that.”

 

She tore away from him and looked him in the eyes. “You can’t promise me that. But can you please just keep your promises that you’ve already made?” Her fingers snaked down his chest and she pulled at the hem of his boxers. 

 

“Beth-”

 

“Daryl please! Who knows what will happen the next time you come back, I could be dead, you could be dead. I don’t want to lose you and if you give this to me and I get pregnant I will always have a piece of you with me.” 

 

He stared into her big blue eyes and ran his thumb across her pouty lips. He couldn’t help himself. His lips crashed down into hers and he was kissing her like he never had before, he was losing so much control of himself and he didn’t see how he was going to gain it back. Beth had ripped off her nightgown, she wore no bra but some lacy pink underwear. Daryl hummed at the sight of her pink nipples. His mouth trailed down to her neck and then covered her nipples. He began sucking and biting gently. Beth let out little moans into the air. The sound of her moans only made him harder. 

 

Beth surprisingly pushed all of her weight onto him and forced herself on top of him. She straddled him, sitting up with her breasts showing in the light of the moon, Daryl bit his lip. Beth could feel his hard-on pressing against her womanhood through his boxers and her underwear. She wanted him now. She kissed his neck and licked her way down to his underwear. Daryl lifted her hips so she could take off his boxers. In one fluid movement she had his boxers off and was standing above his taking her panties off. 

 

She sat back down on his hard-on, his head slowly entering in her tight and wet pussy. He moaned as he say her bit her lip to stifle a slight cry of pain as she adjusted to his size ever so slowly. Finally when he was all the way in her, he began rocking his softly up and down, Beth let out moans. Daryl sat up, her breasts in his face. He began thrusting harder in her, biting on her breasts as she pulled at his hair. Her moans got louder and louder and Daryl was grunting with her nipple in his mouth. Beth was going to cum soon, she hadn’t had intercourse in so long and Daryl was so good. 

 

“Beth I’m gonna cum.” He panted. 

 

She bit her lip and nodded. A hot sensation passed through her and she began to practically scream with pleasure, she was through in a matter of seconds but Daryl kept pounding into her. Beth felt so sore but she loved it so much. Daryl came a few minutes later. 

 

They both fell back on the bed. Daryl was panting and Beth was still slightly moaning beside him. He looked over at her and thought that she was the most amazing thing that he had ever seen. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his chest, he flung the covers back over them. 

 

“You know I love you.” He whispered as he touched her cheek.

 

“I love you.” she smiled.

 

______________________________________________________________________________

 

When Beth woke up he was gone. She quickly threw on some clothes and ran downstairs but he was gone along with the others. Michonne saw Beth standing dumbly in the doorway. She sighed and went over to the girl. 

 

“He’s been gone for at least an hour now.” She said to her. 

 

“He didn’t even say goodbye.” She choked out.

 

“Goodbye’s are harder to say than you think Beth. Maybe he couldn't say it.” 

 

“I would have liked for him to try.” 

 

“I know.” Michonne rubbed her back motherly. “Look I know you wanna mourn the fact that Daryl is going out in that hell hole but we need to get this place up and running again. Since our main runners are busy right now. You and Carl will have to go with Bob.” Michonne had surprised Beth with these words. 

 

“Are you sure about sending me?” She turned to face the woman.

 

“You’ve proved yourself Beth, especially after what you did last night. I know you can handle yourself. We are extremely low on bullets, we need more seeds, some of our crops were trampled I think you saw that this morning and we need more supplies, like metal sheets, nails. All that stuff. You and Carl will take the horses, Bob will follow in his truck. I want the three of you to try to find a trailer and if you can look for other horses, we’re running low on gas and soon they’ll be our only mode of transportation so we’ll need more than two. Also try to get a breast pump, Maggie will be getting better soon and she’ll want to start getting out more, she’ll need to had food for the baby.” 

 

“Yes, ma’am.” She nodded at Michonne, feeling a sense of power now. 

 

“I’ll go get Carl and Bob, you get the horses ready for the trip.”


	8. Horses and Laps

Riding the horse was hard for Carl, he had never done it before and it was extremely uncomfortable. Beth was becoming annoyed with his complaining but she kept her mouth shut and her eyes on the road, making sure that no walkers were coming. She had her hand gun with a about ten bullets in it and then another ten in her back pocket. Carl had about the same amount and Bob had the rifle.

 

Beth knew that the horses were strong but she knew that they wouldn’t be able to pull too much wait with just the two of them, a small trailer would be all that they could get. She hoped that they would find some more horses soon but she knew that they wouldn’t find any on their way into town, they would be out in the woods somewhere, she’d have to wrangle one later in the day, maybe after they got back. 

 

They went inside the local supermarket, Bob and Carl made sure that it was clear of any people and then beth took the horses in, and tied them up loosely. She didn’t want them outside where something could happen to them, she wanted them to find their way home or run and be safe, not walker food. They each grabbed a shopping cart and started looking for seeds and anything else that would be useful. Bob went for the nails, Beth went to look for a breast pump and Carl looked around outside for some metal sheets that they could use. 

 

Beth managed to find a breast pump and the seeds, and Bob found the nails, a lot of them but Carl didn’t find any metal sheets that they could use. They’d have to find some construction place. They set off again to look for metal. 

 

“Do you hear that?” Carl asked, making his horse stop.

 

Bob stopped behind them and got out of his car. Beth listened for whatever it was that Carl was talking about. They could hear the groaning of a herd of walkers approaching them. It sounded like a lot of them. 

 

“What do we do?” Beth asked, her heart pounding. 

 

“Get in the woods, be quiet and quick.” Carl prompted. Bob shut the car door and ran into the woods, making sure to get far enough from the road but close enough so that he could still see the car. 

 

Carl and Beth lead their horses into the woods, where they were safely hidden by the overgrowth of the land. There are a lot of walkers, maybe thirty of them making their way down the road, possibly towards the house. They didn’t know but they did know that that was the last place to have sound coming from it, hopefully they would lose their direction and just keep going straight instead of finding their way to the house. Once they were all safely away Beth, Carl and Bob came out of the woods. 

 

“You think they’re safe?” Bob asked.

 

“I don’t know.” Carl said. 

 

“Should we go back?” Beth asked. 

 

“No, if they see us and they will hear us, then we’ll be leading them right to the house.” Bob shook his head. “Hopefully they’re ready if those things start building up.”

 

“We need to find the ammo and the metal now.” Beth said and they started looking again. The thought of the other being surrounded by those things scared them but they needed to deal with the task at hand. 

 

______________________________________________________________________________

 

Daryl, Tara, Eugene and Abraham rode in a car. They headed left, out of the city that they were staying in. They decided to follow the walkers, wherever they headed that meant that people were there and that’s what they needed. After a while it felt like they weren’t going to find anyone, that they were running on empty time. But then something caught Daryl’s attention as they were   
driving down a seemingly abandoned road, he swear he saw someone's hair flicker behind them as they ran. 

 

“Stop the car.” Daryl tapped on Abraham’s shoulder.

 

“Why?” Abraham asked stopping the car. 

 

Daryl got out of the car and looked around the side of the roads. He knew someone was there. “We’re not bad.” He said loudly. “Hell I know how that sounds but I promise, we aren’t bad.” 

 

The others looked at him like he was crazy but none the less they got out of the car and searched the woods with their eyes. “Daryl, there’s no one there-” Tara began, but stopped when she heard leaves crunching. “Come out now or I promise to start firing off into those trees.” 

 

“Stop!” A tall man with short curly hair said coming out from behind the trees. “My names Aaron, my people, we had a safe haven but it was taken over, by this group of people. We just need shelter.” 

 

“How many people are there?” Abraham asked. 

 

“Just seven.” He stuttered. “Five males, including me and two females. Three children- well teens.” 

 

“Tell them to come out, we don’t mean no harm.” Daryl said. 

 

The rest of his people slowly came out from behind the trees and to the edge of the road. They all looked badly bruised and beaten, they were covered in ash and blood. “I’m Aaron, this is my boyfriend Eric.” He said grabbing the other man's hand. “That’s our leader Deanna, the two younger ones are Ron and Sam they’re brothers and the girl is Enid. And spencer is Deanna’s son.” He introduced them. 

 

“How long have you people been on the road?” Eugene asked. 

 

“About a week.” Eric said. 

 

“What happened to your place?” Tara asked them, beginning to slow lower her gun. 

 

“Some people raided our site, we had a whole community built up, with strong walls and everything but this group, they call themselves the wolves, they broke through our walls and let roamers in. They ruined our whole community we had about thirty or forty people there but now these are all the people we have left.” Deanna said, her voice cracking every three words. 

 

“Do you people have a safe place? Somewhere we can stay?” The younger boy asked, Ron.

 

“We do, you people seem harmless enough.” Abraham said. 

 

“Wait, I have a few questions.” Daryl stopped them from smiling and celebrating. 

 

“Of course.” Deanna composed herself and smiled slightly at Daryl. 

 

“You were the leader?” 

 

“Yes.” 

 

“How many walkers have you killed?”

 

“None until our camp was invaded, my husband and two sons were there with me when all of this started.” 

 

“And people? How many have you killed?”

 

“None.” 

 

“What about the rest of your people? How did you run your community?”

 

“We ran it like a normal society would. We celebrated holidays, had a prison, a school, we were trying to start something better than this. We didn’t kill anyone, exile was something that we had done only when it came to the worse of terms. Aaron and Eric were my recruiters, they would go out and do what you’re doing now. Ron and Sam’s mother was our hairdresser, their father our surgeon, no one knows where they are now. Enid was one of the people we found, her family was gone. She was only with us for eight months but she seems to be a normal person. Spencer was our helping man, he would go out on runs and but mostly help me out. I had another son but he died on a run. My husband, I have no idea where he is.” She sighed. 

 

“So none of you are really harmful. Like I said.” Abraham nodded looking at Daryl. “Obviously there isn’t enough room in the car for all of us but we will just have to make room, no one wants to be stuck out here.” 

 

They opened the trunk, Enid, Ron and Sam would have to sit there and try to be as comfortable as possible. Tara moved to sit on Eugene’s lap who of course had no objects to it. Deanna slid in and then the two men followed Tara and Eugene’s suit. 

 

“Hope everyone is comfortable, we’ve got a long way home.”


	9. Take out the threat

It was dark when Beth, Carl and Bob approached the gate. They had managed to find some metal, a lot of it infact but they could only bring back so much at the moment. The horses were tired and worn. Beth and Carl had got off their back so they wouldn't cause extra weight for the poor beasts. Beth led the horses while the two men drove slowly behind them. 

 

Carl was the only one who could climb the high gate and open it. He had figured a way to climb the bars since the first time they got there and it came in handy to the others every once in awhile when someone would get locked out with him. 

 

“Welcome home.” Carl sighed as he opened the gates. 

 

“I’ll untie the trailer from the horses and then put them away. They’re going to need water, will you send someone out with some while I’m putting them away?” She asked Carl.

 

“Of course.” He smiled at her.

 

Beth led the horses to the far end of the gate where there was a gaping hole and untied the trailer there. The she led the horses who seemed grateful that the weight was off of them, they hadn’t carried that much before, Beth felt sorry for them. Once she had the horses back in the barn, she began brushing them and feeding them hay that was on the ground. 

 

“You know, you still look pretty with blood and dirt coverin’ your face.” Daryl said from behind her, holding two pails of water.

 

“Hey!” Beth ran into his arms and hugged him tightly, Daryl sat the pails of water down quickly and then caught her in his arms. “I didn’t think you’d be back for at least a week!” She said looking at his face. 

 

“We lucked out, ran into a group of people a few hours in.”

 

“How many?” Beth asked shocked that he found people so soon.

 

“Seven. Five men, two women. They’ve got a kid with them and two people around Carl’s age. Another guy around your age, a lady couple years older than me and Rick and two men around Sasha’s age.” 

 

“We can trust them?” She asked worriedly. 

 

“For now yes but they could bring trouble. They had their own nice little set up and then some other group called the wolves broke down their walls and walkers got in.” 

 

“What if the wolves were those people that we took out yesterday?” 

 

“Could be but we still need to be on the alert.” Beth nodded and Daryl felt the ends of his mouth turn up into a smile. 

 

“Do you have to go out again?” Her voice sounded needy.

 

“Not until we learn that we can trust these new people, so I’ll be here for another week or so.” Daryl shrugged, he couldn’t promise her more than a week.

 

Beth picked up the pails of water and put on in front of each horse. “I was going to go out and look for more of them but it’s too dark now. We looked everywhere for metal.” She sighed deeply. 

 

“We’ll go tomorrow, just me and you.”

 

“Promise!” Beth smiled like a kid in a candy store.

 

“Promise.” He laughed at her silly happy face.

 

“Michonne was talking about how we needed more horses, this one's a boy and this one is a girl but she’s not in heat yet so we’ll have to wait till next spring and then hopefully she’ll get pregnant but it’ll be a couple of months before she delivers, I hope I can actually deliver a horse.” Beth’s eyes widened at the thought of having to do this.

 

“I’m sure Maggie will be able to help you by then.” 

 

“She has been stuck on that baby all day, she needs to put her down before that baby never wants to leave her arms.” She rolled her eyes at her annoying and very clingy sister. 

 

“Maybe she just wants to make as many memories as she can with it.” Daryl shrugged, he understood why Maggie was so clingy with her baby, she didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. 

 

“I just hope the kid isn’t as possessive as her. Come on, let's go get something to eat.” 

 

______________________________________________________________________________

 

“I’m Beth Greene.” She said as she shook the hand of the Spencer fellow. 

 

“Spencer, nice to meet you. I’m so glad that we have some place to be now. Some place to call home.” He was a charming boy, Beth could not deny that but he was nothing in comparison with Daryl.

 

“We’re glad that we can give you a home. Sooner or later we’re going to have to start expanding and we’ll need a lot more people to do that.” 

 

With Rosita and Sasha pregnant and the seven new additions to the family Beth knew that even though the mansion was large, they were going to have to start building more houses in the area.

 

“I can definitely help with that, my father was an architect, I used to help him out a lot.” 

 

“That’s good, then you’ll be able to add something into the group, you won’t be dead weight.” 

 

“I’m glad.” He smiled very cockily, Beth could tell that this boy was very sure of himself. 

“You’ll be sleeping down the hall from me, right next to your mother and Carl.” Beth handed over some blankets, when they first got here it was winter time and they had gathered up all the blankets and distributed them evenly, now that it was summer though, the didn’t need as many. 

 

“Thank you Miss.Greens.”

 

“You’re welcome Mr.Monroe. If you have any questions just come knock on my door, or look for me outside.” She smiled brightly at him, Beth had always been known to flirt without even trying, it was just in her system.

 

Beth was feeling okay about bringing these new people in, they looked harmless enough and the fact that they had brought children with them and a couple of teenagers showed that they weren’t all about only the toughest of the tough survived. The fact that they had been trying to bring up their own society before was also a plus, it showed that they weren’t like the people at Terminus.

 

The kitchen was filled with her group, they were all standing in a circle, looking at each other or the floor, seeming lost in thought. Beth came up from behind Daryl and placed a warm, small hand on his back. He turned and smiled ather slightly, she stepped in with the circle. “I don’t think that we have much to worry about.” 

 

“Rick is just worried about Carl and this new girl.” Michonne chimed in trying to lighten the group up. 

 

“Yeah, afraid we’ll have another little Grimes walking around here.” Tara laughed and bit her lip when she saw the red faced Carl. 

 

“Ron, that guy, he’s her boyfriend so I doubt that I will be making anymore little Grimes.” He sneered.

 

“We’re just makin’ fun Carl.” Rick smiled. 

 

“We need to start expanding.” Abraham piped up. “We’ve got both of these new people, that’s Five rooms that have been taken up. Maggie’s baby will be needing it’s own room soon, so will Jamie and Judith. We can’t all stay in this one house for forever.

 

“I know Abraham, I know.” Rick sighed, his headache starting back up again.

 

“We’ll start on that once we finish the gate, the gate is first. Then once we get the gate fixed up, we’ll start building three or four more houses, then we’ll get a school up. Once we get more people we’ll start expanding the gate. Right now it’s the gate though.” Michonne stepped up, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder.

 

“Alright, well let’s all get some sleep. I know Beth and Carl need some, you guys look like shit and in the morning you guys are going back out again.” Abraham said, it was unlike him to make commands with asking Rick first, usually Rick was okay with them though. 

 

“Wait. Who here has building experience or is even handy with tools.” Rick asked. Daryl, Glenn, Bob, Abraham, Tara and Eugene raised their hands. “I’ll need the six of you to start working on the gate. Carl, Beth, Bob, and some of the new people will go out with you all tomorrow to get more supplies.” 

 

“You sure about takin’ them with us?” Carl asked.

 

“I’m sure you’ll know what to do if anything happens.”

 

They all nodded with a silent understanding, if anything was to go wrong they would just handle it. Take out the threat.


	10. Running

“This is an important run. You have two missions. Mission A, find more horses, only when you find more horses will you be able to complete mission B. Mission b is bring back a shit ton of woods, nails and other things that are needed to build a house. We will need insulation, brick, cement. I do not expect you to be home by tomorrow but if you are not back in three days we will send out a search party.” Abraham stood in front of the running group. 

Beth, Sasha, Bob, Carl, Noah, Spencer, Aaron, Eric and Glenn who had volunteered last minute with the permission of his slightly disapproving wife. They all carried with them a backpack, holding three bottles of water, six granola bars, some ammo and a knife. This was originally their emergency packs but they were going to be gone for a while and who knew when the next time that they would find food and water would be. 

 

“I’m gonna miss you.” Daryl said coming up to Beth. 

 

“I know, I’m gonna miss you too.” She pulled at a long piece of Daryl’s hair. “Keep the bed warm for me?” She smiled. 

 

“Whatever you want.” He chuckled and then looked at her seriously. “Come back safe okay?”

 

“Always.” She laughed at the irony of the situation. Usually it would be her who would stay behind the safe walls of their fortress but this time she was going out into the brutal world and Daryl was staying safe.

 

“Beth, let’s go!” Her brother in law yelled to her.

 

“Got to go.” She reached up on her tippy toes and kissed his prickly cheek. “Love you!” She called behind her.

 

“Love you.” He mumbled as he watched her on her way. 

“Come Daryl, she’ll be back before you know it, right now though we need your help with this fuckin’ wall.” Abraham sighed shaking his head, knowing the work ahead would be hard. 

 

The sun was high in sky and Daryl had been working since Beth and the others had left, they knew there wouldn’t be enough metal sheets for the whole way around, so they decided to leave a assigned an area of the gate to stay without metal so they could later expand. One group of people were on the outside of the gate, hammering in their own sheet and another was inside the gate hammering away right in front of the outside sheet, they weren’t going to mess up this time. 

 

They had half of the east side of the gate covered when the broke off for lunch, it was tiring work and without power tools it took it a while for the long nails to puncture through the metal. It seemed like endless, mind numbing work to Daryl. He wished that he had Beth here to laugh at him as he complained or nearly hammered his thumb instead of the nail. He already missed her so much. 

 

Beth was riding one of the horses, Carl was riding the other since he had gotten used to it from riding it yesterday. The others walked on foot, waiting to find anything that might be of use to them. “How the hell are we supposed to find horses?” Spencer finally asked. 

 

“We track them.” Glenn answered, not really knowing how they were going to do that either.

 

“And how do we do that?” Spencer asked again, sounding annoyed. 

 

“I don’t know.” Glenn sighed. 

 

“Horses are more than likely to be in the woods and wheat fields so maybe we should get off the roads.” Beth suggested. 

 

“Yeah maybe we should do that.” Carl agreed. 

 

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

Getting off the road had worked, it was dusk but they had managed to find three horses, they had been running around together, one looked a little beaten and it seemed that the others were taking care of it. Beth didn’t know what do, they had found them but how were they going to catch them now? She didn’t have any rope with her. 

 

“What now?” Sasha asked. 

 

“Sasha get on my horse.” Beth said sliding off her horse. 

 

“What, I don’t know how to ride this thing.” She said in detest. 

 

“Don’t worry, it’s easy.” Carl intervened. 

 

“What are you doin’?” Glenn asked, knowing good and well that if anything happened to Beth that Maggie would kill him. 

 

“I’m gonna try something.” She ripped up some off the long wild wheat that was growing around them. “Ya’ll just stay quiet okay.”

 

She began walking slowly and quietly towards the horse, she was about twenty feet from them and they had noticed her, she didn’t smell strange like the walkers did but they recognized the smell of a human and were slightly eased by it. The fact that Beth was holding up food that they could eat made it even better, they younger horse who seemed to be the least skittish made it’s way over to her first, two steps forward, one step back. It got five feet to her and then stopped she moved first and it neighed. “Easy boy.” She cooed, she held out the wheat and the horse began to nibble on it. Soone the other two horse came by and and began to sniff Beth. 

 

“Carl,” She called behind her, still petting the horses. “Come here!” 

 

“Here, Aaron get on this horse!” Carl smiled brightly and made his way slowly towards the other horses, soon he was petting them and were sniffing all over him.

 

“I want you to try to get on, see if’ they’ll let you do that.” Beth nodded at him. 

 

“Alright.” Carl began to speak soothingly to the horse, so that it knew he was still there, he grabbed on gently to the mane and boosted himself up the horse as best he could, they were a bit taller than their horses. “I’m on.” 

 

“Great,” Beth clapped quietly. “I’m gonna try to get on this one now, I hope she doesn’t mind that I am rough with her.” Beth was going to have to rely on the horse a bit more than Carl to get on it. The horse neighed in annoyance when she gripped it’s hair too hard but once Beth was on she realized that these horses had been riding horses before, used to work and people riding on them. “These were farmin’ horses, they’ll be useful to them, I want someone ridin’ the other one though, they seem spooked easily and I don’t want then gettin’ scared and runnin’ away.”

 

“I can try to ride.” Eric said comin’ up to them.

 

“Thanks but no thanks, Glenn’s had experience ridin’ horses before so I want him on her.” Beth didn’t mean to be rude, but she felt as if she had come off that way, she smiled at Eric so he would know that it wasn’ anything personal. Glenn hopped onto the horse. 

 

“Now we gotta find somewhere to sleep for the night, walkers are more active then so we need to be safe. And it needs to be bing so we can bring the horses in.” Glenn said. 

 

They began wandering around in the roads and looking for a place to call home for the night, no one wanted the horses to be outside by themselves, it was too much of a risk, who knew when they would find more horses again? Walkers in big groups took them down too easily. It didn’t take them long to realize that they weren't going to find a place big enough so they set up camp outside. 

 

It felt strange for Beth to sleep outside again, she hadn’t done this in so long and she was completely aware that there were a lot more walkers out now than she had ever dealt with before. She only slept a little that night. 

 

Daryl on the other hand had collapsed on the Beth scented bed as soon as he was in reach of it, they had worked until it was impossible to see where they were hammering. He was tired and there was no meat at dinner, so there was nothing to fuel him any longer.


	11. Morning and Noon

Morning

“We should start looking for the wood and maybe some more metal sheets, I know where the store is.” Beth said to Glenn as they were packing up their things, no one had slept to well last night and they had all woken up at the break of dawn.

 

“You’re probably right, we should try to find some more nails and hammers, maybe some more industrial stuff. We’re going to need all that we can find if we’re going to build up like Rick wants us too.” Glenn sighed, desperately missing his warm bed and the cooing of his baby girl. 

 

“Thank you for coming Glenn, I know you've got your baby- my niece to worry about but it means a lot that you are coming.” She planted a kiss on his cheek.

 

“It’s no problem Beth, I care about you as much as Maggie does, I wasn’t going to let you go out here on your own, especially without Daryl. Believe me I know that you can take care of yourself but a little extra help never hurt.” He smiled down at the cute blonde who reminded him only of Maggie when she smiled and when she spoke. 

 

“Alright, let’s get moving!” Glenn called to the others who had wandered off not too far away to release themselves. “We need to find trailers, we have five horses now, that means we can have a trailer for each horse but we don’t want too much on either, we don’t need the horses collapsing on us.” He scoffed at the thought. 

 

“Carl and Beth are going to be going ahead of us, making sure that we’re all okay and to scout out what our options are looking like.” 

 

______________________________________________________________________________

 

“I really wish we had something other than fruit and eggs.” Daryl mumbled. 

 

“Me and you both, brother.” Rick sighed. He missed looking down the table and seeing his little boy there safe and sound, last night Judith had kept asking where Carl was, it was driving him nuts.

 

“So how much metal we got left?” Daryl asked Abraham. 

 

“Enough to finish the North and south side, we’ll leave the west side, it’s fine for the moment and if we’re going to expand then we’re going to need something to take off.”

 

“You think they’ll be home soon?”Maggie asked anxiously, cuddling her baby.

 

“No, I said three days Maggie, they’ll be back tomorrow and if they aren’t back then we’ll send out a search party. Myself, Michonne and Daryl will go out and look for them, that leaves you and Rosie with the kids.” Abraham said rather harshly. 

 

“I'm sure they’re fine.” Rosita added more sweetly than her husband.

 

“But we need to get back on that fence.” So they did.

+++  
Noon.

It was getting hot, Beth was sweating as she sat up on her horse, she could see the store where Carl, Bob and herself had found the metal just down the road. The hardware store was packed with all types of things, if they were lucky they’d find everything that they wanted and more. As they got down the hill find a pail and poured a bottle of water into it, so did Carl and Bob, that was enough to keep the horses hydrated. 

 

They found four small carrying trailers and rope to attach it to the horses. They began placing metal and wood on the trailers, Beth was the judge of what was too much and what was enough. Horses were strong animals but Beth didn’t want to overwork them, the three other horses weren’t as healthy as their own horses which meant they would be overworked easy. 

 

Carl, Noah, Spencer and Bob put their supplies in with the others so that they could carry tools and other things that they would need for their new homes, they would come back for the insulation later, it wasn’t like they were building the houses right away.

 

“Mission one and Mission two accomplished.” Glenn sighed. 

 

“I believe he referred to them as Mission A and Mission B.” Carl corrected him with a chuckle.

 

“I don’t care what he called it, I just wanna get home!” Noah yelled to the sky.

 

“He’s right, we need to make our way back before night, We’ll try to keep going but if it gets to be too much we’ll camp out again.” They all nodded in agreement, none of them could imagine staying another night in those woods. 

 

______________________________________________________________________________

 

Daryl was anxious, he was sure that they would be back today, no matter what kind of time limit Abraham had put out for them. But it was past three now and he didn’t know if they would be back in time, he could hope, but he didn’t think that would help at all. He focused on his mind numbing work and tried to keep his mind off of Beth. 

 

By the time night had fell on the house everyone was anxious;y awaiting their arrival. They knew that the group wasn’t lost because they had been here for two years, they knew the area like the back of their hands. They were going to have to take turns watching out for the group. Carl could no longer climb over the side of it someone would need to be out there to watch. Daryl had first shift, Rick had second and then Michonne would come. Daryl was positive that he would be out there all night though. 

 

The group had stopped, they needed to rest. The horses were getting over heated and the sun was sitting quickly, it would be too dangerous to me moving out in the night with all the noise that they were making. They set up came off the side of the road, Glenn took first watch, Beth took second and Spencer took third. Beth felt strange, not being used to sleeping outside anymore bothered it, it made her realize that they were all getting soft. 

 

Walkers used to not scare them, they used to be one of the easiest threats to take down but now that they had been stuck behind those barred walls they were used to the safety, used to not using their knives anymore. This was something that Beth was going to have to bring up to Daryl, she didn’t like the idea of getting weak again. 

 

“Wake up! We gotta move, we’ve stayed here too long I can hear walkers not far away!” Glenn yelled shaking everyone awake. Beth could hear them too, she could hear their loud moans but she couldn’t see them. They all began to gather their things in a panicked hurry. Beth, Carl, Aaron, Sasha and Glenn got on the horses and we started off. 

 

Beth ears rang every time they went over a bump in the road and the metal and wood banged loudly, she kept checking over her shoulder to see if any walkers were gaining on them. She could see the walkers, they weren’t moving fast but they were following their trail, not on them but definitely there. 

 

They could see the house once the turned down onto the dirt road, Beth urged her horse to go faster, it slipped into a faster gallop and she was soon there. Carl and the others had done the same urging movement to their horses and were right on her tail. The ones not on the horses were running as fast as the could trying to make it to the gate. 

 

It was different now, there was a thick metal layer on the outside of the fence, it looked sturdy and strong. Beth banged on it with her fist. It slid in moments later and a tired looking Daryl was standing in front of her. “Go get the others, we’ve got a herd coming our way.” She urged him, she allowed the horses to slip past them, inside the gate and into safety. 

 

The others drew their guns and knives. “We’ve got to be smart about this, we don’t let them slip past us, we watch our neighbor, make sure they don’t get over whelmed or taken down.” Glenn shouted. 

 

Beth had just gotten a good look at the herd and realized how many of them there were, there were more than thirty, probably even more than fifty they couldn’t do this. “Glenn this is impossible!” Beth shrieked.

 

“No, we need to do this, we can do this!” Glenn yelled at her. 

 

She knew they wouldn’t be able to though, there were way too many. 

 

POW! POW! BRAKKKKKAAAAKKKAAAKKAAA!


	12. Chapter 12

The gunshots weren’t coming from them, someone had quickly driven down the dirt road towards the house. Glenn and the others hit the dirt as the sound of the gunshots began filling the air. They began crawling towards the gate, once everyone was inside Glenn managed to close the gate. 

 

“What the hell is that!” Rick yelled running down to them with his gun in hand. 

 

“I don’t know, these people just rolled up in a truck and started shooting at the walkers!” Glenn yelled. The crying of children could be heard from the house. 

 

“What are we supposed to do!” Daryl hissed through clenched teeth. 

 

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” Rick yelled to himself, they sounded heavily armed, Rick didn’t like that. 

 

“What if they’re friendly? They didn’t shoot at your people!” Deanna pointed out.

 

The gunshots ceased and everyone stared at each other, panicked and not knowing what to expect next. “Hey now, is that any way to treat the people who just saved your asses! Friendly fire I promise!” A male voice called. 

 

“Who are you?” Rick called back, trying not to let her worry show through in his voice. 

 

“Names Jesus, I’ve got a few of my men here with me, Jason, Heath and Tommy.” There was a long pause of silence. “Listen, we’re not bad I promise. We’re here to help.” 

 

Beth looked at Glenn who still had his hand on the gate, keeping it locked tightly. She pushed her brother out of the way and opened the gate. Out there stood a man with a tabogin and rather long hair, with three other men waiting behind him, guns aimed at the people that they could see. 

 

“We’re not goin’ to hurt you, I’m Beth and these people are my family. Why are you here?” She asks them in a tone that she didn’t know she had. Daryl moved up closely behind her, one hand on her back as if he was ready to push her out of the way of a bullet any minute now. 

 

“My name is Jesus, you probably think that you are the last people left out here but you’re wrong. We’ve got a whole society over on a hilltop. Secured by cars and gates. We’ve been looking at you people for a while now, we say the Alexandria safe zone tore down too, sorry bout that.” He locked eyes with Deanna. 

 

“What do you mean society?” Rick asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. 

 

“A new way of life, we live like we did before, we have a school, a justice system and a community. We’re actually not that far away from you people.” He pointed out. 

 

“How did you find us?” Daryl asked. 

 

“Well, our little friend Negan was here, he’s the one that found you first. He had been scouting you guys out for weeks and none of you noticed, we saw how you held yourself against them. Thanks to you people we have taken over Negan’s old territory. They were a threat to our way of life, not very nice people as I can see that you’ve noticed.” Jesus said in a very light hearted tone. 

 

“Why didn’t you help my people?” Deanna asked. 

 

“We don’t help, you have to hold your own and once we notice that you can do that, we observe and if you can hold your own then we tell you about us and we let you in.” He shrugged. 

 

“Let us in? What does that mean?” Rick asked. 

 

“We let you become apart of our society. We didn’t even know that this place existed. We had gone past it do many times but it’s well hidden back here. Our society has been expanding inthe opposite direction of you all, but now that we have a reason, I think we might just expand this way.” 

 

“And who’s to say that we want anythin’ to do with you all?” Eugene chimed in. 

 

“We’ve got resources that you people don’t, we have bread, farming methods, more meat.” He emphasized the word meat. That’s how Beth knew that they had been watching them. “You don’t have to move into our territory, we’ll bring our territory towards you.” He eased on. 

 

“Alright, but we stay in control of our own territory.” Rick said, liking the idea of what these people were bringing on, not quite trusting them yet but if Jesus had as many people as he was letting on, Rick knew that he didn’t want to make enemies of these people. “

 

“We need more people like you. People who don’t lose the strength that they’ve gained from the new world. A lot of them just want to settle down again, try to act like there aren’t dead people other there that want to tear them to pieces. You people know how to deal with it, you know there is still a threat and you know how to avoid them and kill them.”

 

“What do you get out of takin’ us in?” Daryl asked, knowing that no one just took people in nowadays.

 

“More people to up the populous, I can tell by the amount of cries I hear in there that you have children, we can offer them a school and more safety. All we want in return is your work and effort to help us solve what’s going on here.” 

 

Jesus made it seem simple enough, he had reasonable terms and valuable resources that they needed, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to side with these people. Rick looked to the man and back to his group, he could see his wife standing on the porch, her katana in hand and her eyes set on him. 

 

“Fine, we’ll do it.” Rick sighed and nodded his head more than necessary. 

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

“What the hell are you thinking?” Michonne asked her husband, they were all gathered in the kitchen, some were sitting at the table, some were leaning against the wall and others were sitting on the floor. Daryl stood behind Beth’s chair and kept a protective hand on her shoulder. 

 

“I’m thinkin’ that we need this for safety, we need this for you, me, Carl and our son.” Rick said, not bothering to look at his wife's scowling face. “I know none of you liked this idea, but this isn’t terminus, this isn’t woodbury, and this isn’t Grady. This is a whole new society, one that has succeeded. They didn’t tell us that we were now apart of their territory, they called this our territory, they are good people, I can tell. They asked to join, they aren’t forcin’ us, they’re givin’ us supplies, protection and life, and all we have to do is work a little. I think we’re all used to workin.”

 

“What do we do if we don’t like them, don’t like their rules?” Glenn asked. 

 

“We don’t have to follow, their rules, I’m sure they don't have any rules set in place that we don't already have either.”

 

“These people, they aren’t stupid.” Carol said. “They’re smart, they’ve been expanding, they aren’t in just one place like we were in the prison and like we are now, they are making their area bigger so that they aren’t ambushed.”

 

“Carol’s right, they’re smart.” Daryl added. 

 

“So you’re sure that these people are safe?” Carl asked, looking at his father. 

 

Rick nodded, “We’re never really safe though, I think we’ve all known that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So guys after what happened to Glenn last night i might lay off this fic for a while, while my feels heal.


	13. Chapter 13

It took a while for everyone to get used to the idea of seeing new people, the group still wasn’t used to seeing Deanna and her people on a day to day basis. But the next morning, Heath and Jesus came down with a few other people to start helping with the construction. But at least that would give Daryl and Beth more time together. 

 

The sun streamed through her curtains, Daryl and Beth had made love for the second time that night. It was rough and filled with want for one another. He woke up first to find her naked breast exposed and her skin slightly shimmering with sweat. He moved over and kissed her cheek, his stubble tickling her neck and making her smile. 

 

“Goodmorning.” She hummed, turning over and kissing him on the lips sweetly. 

 

“You think it might have worked this time?” Daryl asked, talking about their plans to make a baby. 

 

“I won’t know until then end of next month.” Beth sighed, she wanted a baby so badly and with all the changes that had been going on she was afraid that Daryl would want to put it off or they would forget about it all together. 

 

“Hopefully it did.” He whispered. 

 

“Really?” Beth smiled at him, happy that he actually wanted a baby and with her.

 

“Yes really, you got me thinkin’ about would it would be like to have a little me runnin’ around.” He chuckled slightly. 

 

“Oh god, another Dixon boy.” Beth said sarcastically. 

 

“Hey, you love a Dixon boy, so shut your pretty little mouth.” He kissed her sweetly. 

 

“We better get downstairs and start eating breakfast before all the good food is taken.” Beth prompted, getting out of bed and putting her clothes on. Daryl laid in bed and admired her body as she did so. “You gonna get dressed too? Or are you just gonna stare at me?” She teased him. 

 

“I’d much rather just watch you do it.” He sighed and then got out of bed, putting his clothes on too. “But I guess I’ll do it too.” 

 

“How do you think these new people are gonna act around us?” Beth asked looking out her balcony window at the people working on the gate.

 

“Dunno,” Daryl shrugged. “but you stay away from ‘em till I know. Alright?” He warned her, he didn’t need anyone trying to hurt Beth, especially with their future plans. 

 

“Sir yes sir.” She rolled her eyes playfully, Daryl could forget at moments that Beth could take care of herself. 

 

Downstairs everyone was munching away at the breakfast table, Beth and Daryl quickly claimed their food before it was all eaten. “So they started early.” Maggie said, holding her baby to her breast. 

 

“I didn’t they’d be out here this early either.” Rick said. This only proved to him though that these people meant business, they really did want to help. 

 

“At least they’re getting stuff done.” Abraham sighed, his own hands sore from working on that mother dick fence. 

 

“True.” Carl said, a mouthful of eggs. 

 

“I’m so ready to get this baby out of me.” Rosita sighed, upset that she hadn’t been able to do anything useful in the past few days due to her baby bump. 

 

“No, trust me, you don’t.” Maggie said. “These one is always wantin’ either me or her daddy. I don’t want her to get used to bein’ held all the time but I can’t help myself when she’s cryin’ and Glenn, he is the worst! She is goin’ to be such a daddy’s girl.” Maggie nudged her husband with her free arm. 

 

“Hey, I can’t help it. I give my ladies what they want, when they want it.” Glenn cooed at his daughter. 

 

“Except when you can’t get one up.” Tara joked, they all laughed. 

 

“Maybe some of us should get out, see what they’re doin’? Make sure they’re actually helping and not putting weak spots in the gate.” Noah said. 

 

“Yeah, he’s right.” Daryl sighed and kissed Beth on the top of the head. “See you in a little bit.”

 

“Actually you won’t.” Rick said, causing Daryl to stop in his tracks. 

 

“What ya mean?” Daryl looked at Rick, confused and slightly worried. 

 

“Beth, Sasha and a few others are going to go up the the hilltop and see what all they have there, Jesus is going to take them once he and his team are finished with the gate.” Rick said. 

 

“Why me?” Beth asked. Glenn could just as easily do it, or Carl. 

 

“You come off as the least threatening, Sasha can talk about how she’s pregnant and I’ll send Bob to show that we’re all normal down here.” 

 

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Michonne raised her eyebrow at her husband. 

 

“I’d like to go to-” Daryl offered. 

 

“No Daryl, we need you here.” Rick interrupted. 

 

“I’ll go with them Daryl.” Carol said, trying to insure Beth’s safety to Daryl.

 

“You all shouldn’t be so worried, at least try to act like you’re not. Try to come off as happy and normal.” Rick instructed. 

 

“Why?” Beth was confused. 

 

“Because, we don’t know what those people up there have been through, there are probably some people up there that have never even been faced with the problem of having to kill another human.” They all understood what Rick was saying now. They didn’t want to come off as threatening, they needed this. They needed the supplies and the protection and the only way they were going to do that is to act like they were one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys for the lack of creativity in this one, I can not type Glenn's name without like getting a mini heart attack.


	14. Chapter 14

Beth has tied her hair up on a ponytail and wrapped a white bandanna around her hair. Glenn is with her, as well as Sasha, Bob and Noah, the people that Rick deemed less threatening but knew could hold their own. Rick had been more trusting of the small Beth, especially since she had been the one to kill Negan; it was nice having someone believe in her. 

 

They were led by Jesus, the group spread out across the road, watching for walkers and keeping their eye on Jesus at the same time. Beth didn’t think the man was bad, he had a nice demeanor about him, he seemed calm and capable; she liked that. Weapons were not permitted in the hilltop, they had guards riding around on horses with weapons, making sure that the area was safe. There was a literal hill that you had to walk up to see the town forming below, it was bigger than Woodbury, bigger than the whole prison. 

 

At the top of the hill you could see everything, there were houses, a school, a farm, so many things that Beth hadn’t seen in so long. The group looked at each other with their mouths slightly smiling and their hearts slightly leaping out of their chest. “I know right.” Jesus said, catching the looks on all of their faces. 

 

“How did you manage to do all of this?” Beth asked, not believing her eyes. 

 

“We just started back up, we stopped moving and claimed an area as our own, soon others found us and we expanded. Now we’ve got a little over two hundred people here. Fifty children.” He said, proud of himself and his people.

 

“Who is your leader?” Glenn asked, he knew all too well that the people could be perfectly normal but be under a blindfold when it came to their leader, they didn’t need another governor. 

 

“A man named Charles, but I’m the real leader.” Jesus shrugged. “Charles is just there for looks, like how things used to be, we had a president but he never really controlled much did he?” 

 

“Guess not.” Glenn shrugged, still taking in the view below. 

 

“Come on, I’ve got a lot to show you guys.” 

 

As they made their way down to the town they saw more people, more life than they had seen in awhile. People smiled at them and waved, the group was too shocked by all of their willful welcomings to say anything back. There was a blacksmith, a farmers market, a whole area for animals, a bakery. It was like a mall, or at least what they had remembered a mall to be like. 

 

“How exactly do you run your place?” Glenn asked speeding up his pace to match Jesus’s. 

 

“We have laws, rules, prohibitions.” Jesus said. 

 

“We need to know them.” Glenn prompted. 

 

“We have changed the age of adulthood, no longer is it eighteen but sixteen. Alcohol is forbidden, we have cigarettes of course, they may cause lung cancer but it never made people act stupid. We grow marijuana but not for smoking, for more textile things. We have no restriction on how may children you can have. Two people in a household over the age of sixteen can have a gun, children twelve and older can have a knife. We have no restrictions on anything else, religion, sexuality, etc. We believe in the safety and happiness.”

 

“You have a jail, a school?” Bob asked. 

 

“Yes to both.” 

 

“What are your laws exactly?” Beth asked, recalling what had happened to her in Grady hospital with that man. “On rape, assault, abuse?” She specified.

 

“Rape is punishable by death, murder also. Abuse, you will be removed from your home and placed somewhere else, assualt will earn you two weeks in the jail, another offense will get you a month and the third will get you banished.” 

 

“The school, how many teachers do you have?” Sasha asked. 

 

“Ten, we feel that we do not need all of the shit that schools used to teach, we teach basic math, addition, subtraction, division and multiplication and algebra. That is where our math stops though. We teach advanced science, although it is more medical than earth and animal science. the kids learn how to treat a cut, how to cut off a limb if needed- that’s for the older kids though. English, we teach children how to read and write, cursive as well but no essays or anything like that. Social studies, we teach it from grades three to five but we don’t really feel the need to do that because we’ve been through enough.” He smiled smugly. 

 

“That’s amazing.” Bob blinked. 

 

“We want our children educated, we don’t bother to teach them how to drive, we use horses, we are trying to be rid of cars because they do nothing but take up unnecessary space and rot the earth.” He shrugged. 

 

“And do you teach them how to take down walkers?” Beth asked.

 

“We do, but that is only for those fourteen and older, anyone younger than fourteen is not allowed out anyways.” 

 

“What about guns?” Glenn added. 

 

“Ah about the guns I think you all will find this interesting.” Jesus led them to a building just slightly outside of all the fun and commotion of the main area. He opened the door to the warehouse and the group saw something that made their hearts sink. 

 

There was a ton of guns, and people were making bullets at the very moment. “We are very well stocked on guns and bullets. We learned how to make bullets for each and every single one of our guns.” He smiled widely. “Amazing, right?” He chuckled at the groups astonishment. “We only use them int he threat of a herd coming right on us, or humans. Our black smith produces a new sword or two every day and we’ve been making them for about four months though, We use scrap metal from cars for everything that you see here.” 

 

“So you guys are prepared for sure.” Sasha sighed audibly. 

 

“You got that right.” He chuckled. “But you see we have people here, and these people they want to live a normal life and try to forget that there are things out there that want to eat us. Most of them don’t allow their children to take the class about the roamers- or walkers as you call them, they want to sheild them but you and your people, you know about them and you aren’t afraid of them.” He led them out of the warehouse and back outside. 

 

“And?” Glenn asked. 

 

“We want more than to just add you to our compound, we want you to help us start two sections of our new world. One for those who want to forget and one for those who are ready to fight.” 

 

“Why are your people so afraid?” Glenn asked Jesus seriously, he knew why they were afraid, he just didn’t understand. 

 

“They are starting their families Glenn, they don’t want to lose one another, therefore that makes them not want to leave. While they are in here, they feel safe, protected and … well normal.”

 

“Life out there ain’t ever goin’ to be normal again! And your people,” Beth pointed back to the main part of the town. “they need to realize that or they are all goin’ to die. There are killers out there that want to take things from us, they will try to take this from us and they need to be prepared for that. It’s like people not gettin’ their children vaccinated because some idiot started a rumor that it could cause mental illness, they need to be trained- everyone does, because if not, they’re all gonna die.” She felt her voice rising as she recalled the words that Daryl had spoken to her on her first days when they were separated together. 

 

“What’s you’re name?” Jesus asked the petite blonde girl with a strong voice. 

 

“Beth Greene.” She said proudly. 

 

“Why don’t you try talking to my people then, persuade them to join you and your group’s ways. It isn’t as easy as you think it is.” He wasn’t trying to be mean or nasty, he just wanted them to know that it wasn’t his fault that they were this way, that they choose to be that way. 

 

“When?” Beth said sure of herself, that she could at least persuade a few people, save a few people from dying. 

 

“Tonight.” Jesus nodded, surprised at her confidence. “I’m holding a town meeting, or at least Charles is, I’ll let you be the speaker for your group.” He looked Beth up and down and knew that he was going to have to keep his eye on her. “We’ll talk more about that later though, right now we need to get the supplies for your group packed up and taken down there.”


	15. Chapter 15

When the others got back to the mansion they were surprised to find that gate was already finished and they were already starting to expand the west side. Daryl was standing on the outside of the gate, hitting it as hard as he could, making sure that it was strong and steady, others were doing the same on all sides. Beth handed her supplies to Jesus and ran up to Daryl, jumping on his back, catching him off guard and sending them spiraling to the ground. 

 

Daryl was on the defense, not knowing what was happening he began to panick. As soon as he and Beth hit the ground he rolled over Beth’s body and got on top of her, his fist in the air, he struck the ground as Beth moved her head just in time. When Daryl saw the big saucer eyes under him, he stopped. His chest heaving his hair dripping with sweat from the afternoon's work. His fist was still connected to the ground next to Beth’s head, who was breathing heavy too, slightly from fear. She laughed and looked at Daryl playfully. “Wanna take another shot?” She winked. 

 

He laughed awkwardly at first and then whole heartedly. This was Beth, this was how Beth made him feel. Whenever he fucked up it was like he hadn’t, it was like everything that he ever did, Beth always saw it coming and always found it to be Daryl and everything that was Daryl was perfect to her. She lifted her head and kissed his chapped lips lightly. 

 

“You gonna help me up?” She asked, still smiling brightly. Daryl got up and helped Beth up, brushing them both off of the dirt that had gotten on them. Others were staring at them intentively, surprised at how quickly everything had happened and how quickly he was forgiven. He had nearly smashed his lover's face in and all was forgiven. 

 

“What?” Daryl barked, once he realized that they were all staring at them. 

 

“You’re lucky Maggie didn’t see that.” Glenn said as he passed by, half serious, half joking. Daryl laughed but secretly agreed. 

 

“This is your’s?” Jesus asked Daryl, pointing at Beth. Beth placed her hands on her hips, not liking being referred to as this. 

 

“Guess so.” Daryl shrugged, never really putting claim on anything. 

 

“I am.” Beth said proudly, taking Daryl’s hand in hers. 

 

“She’s a fiery one, keep an eye on her.” Jesus smiled at Beth, Beth taking what he said as a compliment, smiled back. 

 

“He doesn’t have to tell me that twice.” Daryl whispered as he walked away. A giggle escaped from Beth’s mouth. “Don’t do that again.” Daryl warned her. 

 

“Promise. I didn’t expect you to react like that, sorry.” 

 

“It’s fine, I scared myself more than you scared me anyways. I never, ever want to hurt you.” He placed his sweaty forehead to hers and cupped the side of her face with his hands. 

 

“I love you.” She breathed, smiling. 

 

“I love you.” He chuckled softly back. 

 

“Hey love Birds, Rick is holding a meeting!” Carol called to them. 

 

“Coming.” Daryl called back, they began to walk to the house. 

 

“Wonder what that’s about?” Beth asked, looking at Rick. 

 

“Dunno.” Daryl shrugged. 

 

All of Rick’s original group was gathered in the kitchen, doors shut. “Jesus has brought it to my attention that he wants to bring his people down here, with us.” 

 

“And?” Maggie asked, not completely comfortable with strangers moving down with them. If they were going to bring more people in, they would need to build houses first, the mansion was becoming cramped- and it was a mansion!

“And I have agreed to it.” He sighed. “ Michonne, Carol and I talked about it and we think it would be nice if we started training these people, we’ll sort of be like the a boot camp for those families that don’t want to forget.” Beth wondered how Jesus had gotten this information to Rick so quickly, he had probably talked Heath into persuading Rick. Beth wasn’t opposed to it and Daryl was fine with it as long as no one interfered with his life. 

 

“And what if I don’t want to live in the boot camp?” Maggie said, standing. “I want to go to the hill.”

 

Beth looked at her sister crossly. “Maggie?” 

 

“Maggie, what are you saying?” Glenn whispered to his wife. 

 

“I want to be in the town, I want a normal life for us and the baby. I don’t want to risk losin’ you anymore, I never liked it from the start and now we actually have a reason to live.” Tears rolled down Maggie’s face. “Rick, I am sorry but we’re goin’ to the hill.” Maggie turned and left the kitchen. 

 

“What in the hell?” Beth looked angrily at Glenn, who raised his hands in the air. 

 

“I dunno. I just go where Maggie goes.” Glenn sighed, throwing an apologetic look in Rick’s direction. “I’m not gonna be a dumbass.” He followed Maggie. 

 

“If there is anyone else who wants to got to the hill, then go.” Rick said, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. 

 

“I’m sure as hell not.” Rosita sighed. Abraham looked proudly at his wife. “It’s weird trying to forget and I think I like this world better than the old one anyways.” 

 

“I’m not either.” Sasha said, thinking about how she would go crazy being in there, acting like everything was normal. 

 

“There’s my answer.” Bob chuckled. 

 

“Mine too.” Tyreese sighed. 

 

“I’m staying.” Carol nodded. 

 

“Me and Beth are too.” Daryl spoke up and Beth nodded, not being able to imagine leaving Daryl and she knew Daryl would stay here.

 

“I’m staying.” Tara shrugged. 

 

“Same for I.” Eugene said. 

 

“Well, I’m not gonna go up there and be alone so I’m stayin’ here.” Noah laughed. 

 

“Well that’s all of us.” Rick looked around at his loyal group, not an ounce of anger towards Maggie or Glenn, they were just doing what they thought was right for their family and Rick didn’t blame them. “We’re going to do this and we’re gonna do it right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO I am thinking of writing a new fic soon, an au, if anyone has any suggestions of things that they would like to see in a bethyl fic or read, I would love to create it.!


	16. Chapter 16

Some of Jesus’s people stayed behind to watch the mansion while Rick, his group and Deanna’s group went to the town meeting or whatever the hell it was. Daryl wasn’t too comfortable leaving his crossbow there, he wished that he could at least bring his knife but Jesus’s people had a strict rule against bringing weapons into the hill without there being a threat. 

 

Daryl’s foot threatened to be up his ass but he wasn’t going to let Jesus know that. 

 

He wasn’t surprised at all by how well they were doing here, it seemed like the people had coped well with their new way life, they had began picking up tasks that they normally wouldn’t have done in the world when everything was handed to them instead. Daryl imagined the dreadful look on some of the teens faces at the beginning of the apocalypse when there was no more wifi, he had to refrain himself from laughing. 

 

Beth stood happily by Daryl’s side in the middle of Hill’s little town circle.. square? She wasn’t at all anxious about giving her little speech about how if they try to pretend to be normal and act like nothing in the outside world is wrong, then they would die. She wasn’t nervous that is, until she saw Maggie and Glenn’s face. Maggie was in a dress, something that she never bothered to wear before because she was always talking about how the walkers might get in and they’d have to start running again and she didn’t wanna be caught in no dress. But there she was,wearing a white flowy dress, her baby in one too. Glenn stood by her side, looking awkwardly at the ground, he knew that what Maggie had decided to do was wrong but he wasn’t going to tell her that. 

 

“Welcome, friends and family. I am sorry that Charles could not be with us tonight, he’s a little on the sick side this evening and didn’t want to risk causing further problems. I’m sure you’re all wondering who these people over here are. Well, they are a new group of people that we are taking in- or rather they are taking us in. I know that there has been talk about wanting to stop bringing up roamers and rotters and what have you, brought up in school and in the Hill. So these people are here to help with that.” He paused and smiled at all of their confused faces. 

 

“They will work with us, for those of you who do not want your children or family members to go on the outside world anymore- that is fine, no hard feelings. I don’t really know how to explain all of this but a member from Rick’s group is going to come up and talk to you about itm try to make you see more of what I’m trying to explain.” He motioned towards Beth. “Would you?” 

 

“Hello everyone, I’m Beth Greene. I grew up on a farm in Georgia, when all this mess started my momma and my brother shawn were the first to go. We didn’t want to believe that they were dead though, we kept findin’ more and more people that had turned into walkers and we just thought that they were sick, that we could wrangle and put them in the barn until help came. But help wasn’t comin’, it never was. Rick and his group came to us and we let them stay and when they found out about the barn they killed every single walker in that barn. My brother, my mother, even one of their little girls that had got lost and my daddy found her in the woods, she was bitten when we found, her on the edge of turning into a walker.” 

 

Beth looked over at Carol who showed no emotion. “They killed her because they knew what she had become, they knew that there was no hope in trying to act like everythin’ was okay and that walkers aren’t a threat to us. The really are though. Human’s are threats to us too, I lost my daddy, an evil man who paraded around and called himself the governor cut his head off because he wanted the prison that we were staying at. We were well protected and happy but the governor didn’t like that. So he shot down our walls and we were all separated. I was separated from my sister and the rest of my group. We lost so many that day.” 

 

“I was separated with a man that I hardly knew, at the time I was still soft, I was one of you, who never left the safety of the walls, who didn’t think that anything bad could happen anymore. I would have died out there if I wouldn’t have been with that man, he showed me how to be strong, how to take care of myself and how the world really is. I taught him that there is hope, that not everyone we meet is goin’ to be a bad person. But the truth is, there are bad people out there. What are you all goin’ to do when a group a people come in and want to take this place from you? It happened to Deanna and her people, they would have died if my people hadn’t have saved them.”

 

“We are not alone, we are surrounded by threats daily. I know that all of you just want to get back to your normal life, pretend that you never killed walkers, that you never killed people for the safety of you and your family. Truth is though, that needs to be your normal life, killin’ walkers and killin’ people who are threats, that needs to be done! You can’t just sit here and act like life is normal, like there aren’t walkers in big herds making their way here at this very moment.” 

 

“Now, what Jesus was tryin’ to explain was that me and my group, we want to teach you how to do this, teach you how to take down walkers, how to scavenge for food and how to be safe, because it’s dangerous and who knows how long you’ll have this place for? Don’t you all want to be prepared? Two days from now, we will hold a meeting at our compound. We want you there, to keep you safe.” Beth stepped back awkwardly, her burst of confidence had faded and she leaned into Daryl who wrapped his arm around her side. 

 

“It’s more dangerous out there than it is in here. Where we are protected by others who are willin’ and wantin’ to have that job. Beth, you’re sayin’ that I need to make my child think that it’s normal to kill another person? That that is what this world is now?” Maggie spoke up, handing the baby to Glenn. 

 

“Maggie, you know better than anyone that we need to know how to protect ourselves, that we’re just goin’ to die if we don’t learn how to!” Beth said defensively, hating her sister for going up against her. 

 

“We don’t need to, this place is big and safe, Beth you can come here and be safe!” Maggie said loudly, gesturing to everything around her. 

 

“We thought we could be safe at the prison too.” She challenged. “Do you all want to know what happens to you when you’re weak!? You get left! Do you wanna know why I was left behind? Because they put me on the bus with the elderly and the children, I got off to help and when I got back the bus was gone and everything was falling around me. Daryl was there, I went with him and he helped me stay safe. He didn’t abandon me or leave me to die! He stayed with me. Unlike my sister who didn’t even bother to look for me!” She was yelling now. 

 

“I looked in that bus for you and Glenn!” She got closer to Beth’s face. 

 

“Glenn, Glenn, Glenn, Glenn, Glenn! That’s all you ever cared about, you thought I was dead the instant those walls started to fall around us! You didn’t believe that I could survive and you gave up on me!” She turned to the other people now, who either looked scared, entertained or interested now. “She looked for Glenn, you wanna know why? Because she knew that he could survive on his own. She didn’t look for me cause she knew that I couldn’t survive alone! Do you want that?” Beth’s voice was weak now and she felt the hot tears bubbling up in her eyes. 

 

Maggie had a single tear rolling down her cheek.

 

______________________________________________________________________________

 

When they got home Beth was about as numb as a person could be. She knew that she was walking but her feet were moving without her brain telling them too and her eyes were seeing without Beth acknowledging what was seeing. Daryl walked three feet behind her, knowing that she was upset, when he and Merle used to fight, it was stupid shit that they got over. But when Maggie and Beth fought it affected them horribly because they were the last thing left that they had of their father. 

 

She took her clothes us, not in the teasing way that she usually did, she just took them off and got in the bed, her back turned towards Daryl and he wasn’t sure what to do, maybe she just needed her space for the night. He went into the bathroom and changed into some basketball shorts and his white undershirt, when he came out Beth was asleep and he figured he might as well sleep downstairs as to not bother her. 

 

When Daryl woke up in the morning he went back upstairs to change into his day clothes, Beth was sitting on her bed with her knees drawn to her chest when he walked in, stopping to look at her. “Hey.” He mumbled. 

 

“Why didn’t you sleep in here last night?” She asked him but didn’t look at him.

 

“I thought you needed your space.” He shrugged. 

 

“I guess.” She mumbled. 

 

“You alright?” 

 

“No. I don’t feel anythin’.” 

 

“Anything?” He asked as he sat down next to her on the bed.

 

“Nothin’.”

 

“Do you feel this?” He asked poking her side, causing her to twitch a little. 

“Barely.” She smiled oh so slightly. 

 

“What about this?” He poked her cheek, a smile coming onto his face. 

 

“Maybe.” 

 

Daryl got on top of her and began tickling her, making her laugh and smile. “You felt that though.” He laughed and kissed her sweetly. 

 

“Can you make me feel more?” She asked in sultry tone, her eyes looking down at their bodie pressed tightly together. 

 

Daryl got up and locked Beth’s bedroom door. He came back and sat in front of her, her legs already spread open for him. His hands started at her neck, roughly caressing her, he circled his thumb around her nipples as he moved passed them and then he squeezed her sides. Her womanhood was already becoming wet. Gently he skimmed his middle finger down her lips, causing them to open slightly and tease her clit. Sticking his middle finger inside her he felt her tighten. 

 

They stared into each other's eyes as he fingered her, he was slow and nice at first, getting little responses from her every now and then but he knew she needed more. He started going fasted as he slid his index finger in her, her moans getting louder. Before long her couldn’t contain himself, he had brought his face down to her womanhood and moaned at the sight of it, taking his fingers out of her, he tasted her juices on them. He began licking at her clit, teasingly and quickly. Beth began to moan. 

 

His lips made contact with her clit and he began sucking on her and slipped his middle finger in her again, making her whimper. Oh he loved to hear her moans, his names coming off her lips in little whispers, a raging hard on formed in Daryl pants. She came quicker than Daryl thought she would, he continued licking her though, causing her to groan and whine. God he loved her.


	17. Chapter 17

Two months passed by with Beth not having her period and since all the ladies in the house had the same period time Beth knew that she had to be pregnant but then again it could just be stress. She had become something of a role model to all the younger girls that had began to move onto the mansion property from the hill. They had began construction and had managed to get a house up already, large enough to house three people. 

 

Beth taught the women how to do up close walker kills, they even used chained up walkers to do this, it wasn’t Rick’s favorite Idea but Abraham insisted that it gave them the realistic depiction of how it was going to happen out there, even though their arms were cut off and teeth were removed. Beth liked the idea though, even though the smell was a little disgusting and it was a hard mess to clean up, it was still better than using dummies. 

 

Expansion on the land was great, they now had an area for a crop field and a separate area where they would work on their classes away from the younger kids so they wouldn’t be in harm's way. Beth also taught at the mansion, they didn’t have a school so they worked in the living room, where no one really lounged around because everyone was so busy all the time. They had about twenty students, ranging from all ages. Beth liked working with the children, having the innocent surround her.

 

Daryl all the meanwhile was busy with his own task, he and Abraham were the leaders of the men group, they took the men out hunting, teaching them how to track animals and how to watch out for walkers all at the same time. Now that they had more hunters they were bringing in more food and they even built a breeding cage for rabbits so that they wouldn’t run out in the winter when the small animals sometimes hid away. Everything was going great. 

 

Nothing between Maggie and Beth had changed. They stayed apart, Beth rarely went up the hill other than to collect bread twice a month and makeshift arrows for Daryl. They didn’t speak even when they crossed paths. Glenn brought her niece down every once in awhile and Beth would take off work to be the little squirt, she loved the baby like it was her own and wished that she saw more of it. Beth wasn’t sure how she was going to settle things between her and her sister but for now there was no need to, she was safe and Beth was protecting herself now. They could handle some time apart. 

 

“Hey Beth.” Daryl called as he crossed the training field with his men in toe, Beth was getting ready for another up close task, this time the walkers had one arm, no teeth but still an arm.

 

“Hey Daryl.” Beth stepped on her tippy toes to give him a quick peck on the lips. 

“How you been?” He asked her. 

 

“I’ve been fine, what about you?” Beth smiled brightly, they only saw each other two hours ago at breakfast. 

 

“I’ve been okay.” The edges of his lips turned up. “What are we doin’ tonight?” They had been so busy lately that usually their routine had been snuggle and fall asleep but he needed a little more Beth time and a little less guy time. 

 

“Oh come on Daryl!” Abraham barked. 

 

“Go on without me, I’ll catch up, let's see if one of ya’ll can catch one without me!” He yelled playfully after the men as they followed the redheaded man. 

 

“What do you wanna do tonight?” Beth giggled. 

 

Daryl leaned in close, his mouth right next to her ear. “You.” His hot breath against her ear sent tingles down her spine and made her flush. 

 

“I think we can do somethin’ like that.” She bit her lip and nodded. “But I need you to get me somethin’.” 

 

“And what is that?” 

 

“A pregnancy test.” She whispered in his ear.

 

Daryl’s heart skipped a beat and he pulled away to look at her bright and smiling face. “Yeah?”

 

“Maybe.” She shrugged and laughed a bit. 

 

“Alright. See ya later.” He grinned and jogged after the other men. 

 

+++

 

Daryl couldn’t believe that he might be a dad soon, he couldn’t believe that he might have a pregnant Beth and a person to raise and love. He could barely even hunt he was so excited, all he could think about was getting that pregnancy test and seeing if his Beth was pregnant. He left the main hunting up to the men that he had been training while he and Abraham went into the store not too far away, they needed more material supplies anyway. 

 

“What you doin’ in that aisle?” Abraham asked Daryl, not bothering to stop to look at him though. 

 

“Beth might be pregnant.” He said, he was very unsure of what test he needed to get, there were so many of them. 

 

“We could use some more diapers too, ole’ boy is usin’ up all the ones that we have.” Abraham said, referring to his son that he had just last week. 

 

“Alright I’ll grab some.” Daryl just decided to get three different kind of pregnancy test, and then four because what if one of them turned out negative just because it was expired? Daryl wanted to be sure, he didn’t want to get his hopes up for nothing. 

 

“We got company!” Abraham called. 

 

Daryl stuffed the things in his shopping basket into his backpack and readied his crossbow, it was never good to have company these days. Sure enough a shit load of walkers were piling up at the back entrance, smashing their hands and faces against the glass. “We gotta go.” Daryl said and Abraham nodded. They hadn’t seen this many walkers in a while. 

 

The people from the hill had a way of getting rid of the walkers. Since there were so many of them and it was more likely that they were going to increase rather than decrease, they started herding them like cattle. Rick was one of the main people that helped out with this. Big groups of walkers would start making their way to towards the people and they would lead them to a gated apartment complex. All of the downstairs areas were boarded up, so the walkers were forced to stay there, all smashed in together. Then, once the place got too full, they took them all out. By sniper and rifle of course, all with silencers so they wouldn’t draw unwanted attention. And they hadn’t seen a big group of walkers in awhile.

 

“How in the hell do you think Rick missed that Bunch?” Abraham asked as he and Daryl ran towards their men in the woods. Hopefully they got to them before the walkers did. 

 

“I dunno man, usually he’s on top of stuff like that.” We’re they being attacked in some way? Daryl couldn’t help but think that that was a possibility. 

 

“Men, fall out, head back to the main gate and get ‘er tightened up, we got trouble!” Abraham commanded them. People respected Abraham as much as they feared him, no one dared go against that man's word- other than his wife, of course. 

 

+++

 

Beth looked at the men as they ran frantically to the gate and closed it tightly, aiming their weapons at the approaching threat. She stopped her lesson and went to stand be Daryl’s side, his crossbow aimed and the only thing he was aware of was the incoming threat, the threat that could take all that mattered to him away from him again. 

 

“You know, you’re cute when you concentrate.” Beth whispered, he could hear the smile playing on the edge of her lips. She raised her bow and arrow, one that Daryl had found for her and thought that she’d be able to handle better than a crossbow with all it’s weight and needed strength to shoot it. 

 

“Yeah?” He laughed. 

 

“Oh yeah.”

 

Beth watched as the walkers appeared from the tree line, she and Daryl were the first people to let their arrows fly, the others shot off their guns, thankfully they all had silencers, ones made by their blacksmith. They took out the threat easily enough, Daryl and Beth and everyone else for that matter knew how easy it was to take out the walkers but every single time they saw them they were reminded of the people they lost, the fear that they once had for the monsters and it set them on edge. It scared them. 

 

“Alright,” Daryl sighed. “Let’s get a burnin’ team goin’.” 

 

“I’ll go and try to find Rick, I think he’ll want to know about this.” Abraham said to Daryl with a nod. 

 

“I got the stuff.” Daryl whispered in her ear. 

 

“Yeah?” She smiled.

 

“Yeah, let’s go.” Daryl grabbed her hand they began running into the mansion, up the stairs and into their room. Beth and Daryl had been together for too long and had seen too much for them to care about whether or not he saw her pee. 

 

He handed her the first box, Beth ripped it open and didn’t bother reading the instructions. She knew that she needed to pee on the white part, wait five to ten minutes and then she’d have her answer. A nervous Daryl began chewing on his finger nails. “I’m gonna go get some water for ya, you’re gonna need to fill up for the next one.” He said as he left the bathroom. 

 

When he came back upstairs Beth had sat the stick on the bathroom counter, bitting her own nails now as she waited for the results. After ten minutes that seemed like five hours thatpink pus sign came up and Beth’s heart skipped a beat. Daryl wasn’t getting his hopes up just yet, one more and he would. 

 

After chugging down the water and waiting another twenty minutes before deciding that she could generate enough pee for a pregnancy test they went at it for the second time. She peed, sat it down and hugged Daryl tightly. Ten minutes passed by with them whispering sweet nothings into one another's ears, telling each other that it was okay if she wasn’t pregnant. 

 

But the second test showed that she was.


	18. Chapter 18

“Listen,” Daryl said as he pulled away from Beth’s embrace. “I gotta go tell Rick about what happened.” 

 

“What happened?” 

 

“There was this herd, RIck’s supposed to have those under control, I don’t know what they’re doin’ out ‘ere unattended, I’m just gonna go tell Rick real fast. The boys already took care of the herd, I’m sure of it, when you were in ‘ere pissin’ on them sticks, I could ‘ear gunfire over your waterfalls.” He teased her, smirking when she got that playfully angry look on her face. 

 

“I did not pee waterfalls.” She slapped his arm playfully. “Alright go talk to Rick.” Beth sighed and kissed his lips. 

 

“You wanna marry me?” He whispered into her mouth.

 

“Why wouldn’t I?” She breathed back, smiling at him. 

 

“I’ll get the ring when I’m out on the next run.” 

 

“Promise?” Excitement shot through her. She never in her life imagined that she would have a wedding ring or even get a husband but here she was about to be married and live a happy life. When the world turned to shit she still got her happy ending. 

 

“Anything for you.” 

 

Beth let out a little squeal of excitement before kissing him hard. “You go now, I think I’m goin’ to take the ladies out on a little run while there’s still daylight.” She winked at him and she grabbed her messenger bag and ran out of their bedroom, Daryl followed after her except turned towards Rick’s room instead of out the front door and into the face of danger. 

 

Surprisingly enough Daryl wasn’t really worried, what he was slightly worried about Beth picking out only girl clothes and them having a boy, Daryl wanted a boy. So far Rick was lucky and had two boys and only one girl- Daryl loved Judy as much as the boys but he liked playing rough, he liked people who could take a joke. He had to mold Beth into their his ways and didn’t much like her getting upset so easily, it bothered him when he say that hurt look in her face. But now she just came up with an equally smart and offending remark, neither of them taking it too far but never letting the other ultimately when their little game. He loved her. 

 

“Hey Rick?” He knocked on his friend’s bedroom door. Michonne answered, wearing her sun dress with Jamie on her hip and Judy at her feet, looking slightly stressed. 

 

“Rick’s in the bathroom, I’m taking the kids outside, you can wait in here if you want.” She sighed, moving out of Daryl’s way. 

 

“You okay Chonne?” Daryl asked, eyeing her as he moved past her and into the room. 

 

“Yeah, just stressed out ya know? Got two babies and a teenage son, I’m bound to have a few moments of madness every now and then.” She scoffed with a smile. 

 

“You know, Beth and I could watch Jamie and Judy sometimes for you guys?”

 

“Thanks but you two don’t have a crib in your room and it’s too much burden to move the crib up two flights of stairs and then back down again the next day.” Michonne smiled slightly at him. 

 

“C’mon Michonne, I know that you don’t want to leave your kids alone, that the last time you did that you lost them. But I’m his godfather Michonne, I ain’t gonna let nothin’ happen to him I swear.” Michonne looked shocked at Daryl’s words, not expecting him to bring up her late son Andre. “Besides,” Daryl said trying to lighten the air. “Beth’s pregnant and we could use some practice.” 

 

The frown on MIchonne’s face was replaced with a smile. “Ah so you finally managed to get the girl pregnant?” She teased him and then sighed. “Congrats, maybe I will take you up on that offer, but only once you get a crib of your own.”

 

“Sure thing Chonne.” 

 

Just then Rick came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair dripping wet. Normally, if the world hadn’t gone the way that it had, Daryl was have ran out of the room embarrassed at the sight of another man half naked in front of him but since it was the way it was neither of the men cared. 

 

“Hey man, did you know about the walkers? There was a big herd of them not too far away. My men and I accidentally led them this way but the others took care of it.” 

 

Rick looked confused. “We have all of the walkers we found locked up, I don’t think there could have been a breach considering that we have two semis on each side of the fences and a man on guard.” He placed a hand on his hip. 

 

“We still ran into them though, I came to you, thought you should know.” Daryl shrugged and sat down on Rick’s bed. “Anyways, it’s your turn to be a god father, Beth’s finally pregnant.” A smile slipped onto Daryl’s lips. 

 

“Congratulations brother!” Rick slapped the man’s back, he knew how bad his brother had wanted a baby, even though he acted as if he didn’t. 

 

“Yeah, Beth went out to get some baby stuff.” 

 

“You let her go out, when she’s pregnant and there is a strange herd wandering around?” Rick looked at Daryl like he was the most idiotic man on Earth. When Michonne was pregnant Rick didn’t let her out of his sight, she wasn’t allowed to leave the house and Rick wouldn’t allow himself to leave Michonne’s side. 

 

“C’mon Rick, she’s like, two months, maybe less. Rosita went out until she was six months.” He scoffed at his friend. 

 

“Just keep your eye on her, Daryl, promise me, you won’t let nothin’ happen to her?” Rick began rummaging through his drawers, looking for something to wear so he could go and sort out this whole herd mess. 

 

“Rick, c’mon man, Beth can handle herself, she’s a strong person.” Daryl tried not to sound offended by Rick’s words, he couldn’t believe that Rick felt that he had to tell Daryl to take care of Beth. 

 

“I know Daryl but her dad was important to me and I believe that he would have left me to take care of Beth, Maggie has Glenn and Beth didn’t have anyone and now that she’s here-”

 

“She has me. She has had me since the day the prison was attacked and we all watched her father die. I’m here for her now, you don’t have to tell me how to do my job Rick.” Daryl stood up and smacked the bed as he did so. “I’m sorry man, just give me some breathin’ air.” He stormed out of the room. 

+++

The world outside of the compound was different, it was overgrown with trees and plants, nature was reclaiming what the humans had taken from them and the sight couldn’t make Beth happier. She always prefered to be in the woods, surrounded by nature than near some high way cluttered with trash and cars, this was how the world was meant to be- minus all the walkers and the death. 

 

Although some of the places were now becoming apart of nature, others had been scorched by fire and burned to the ground, these were never easy sights for Beth to see. She especially hated watching the walkers still walking around, looking for their next meal while one half of their body was on fire. But that wasn’t the case for now. Right now she was wandering down the abandoned road, with Tara, Enid and a few others girls that Beth had come to know and call her friends. 

 

It was nice not being the only girl who actually wasn’t afraid of the walkers, someone who wasn’t afraid of death and knew that it was going to come one way or another anyways. She liked being out of the compound like this, it was like she had never left the woods with Daryl, except for the fact that Daryl wasn’t with her now and his child was currently growing inside of her. Beth knew that the bigger she got the less and less Daryl- or any of the others for that fact would let her go out. They had a rule here, once you’re getting a bit over five months they stop letting out. She was going to hate those days. 

 

But she could enjoy now. “Hey Beth, what do you think of this?” Tara asked, holding up a cute little yellow onesie with ducks on them, they had found a baby store and were currently raiding it. There were enough babies around the house now but once Beth was due, Jamie would be two or just there and Judith will be turning four and Rosita’s baby will be nearly one. Sasha was due any day now and everyone was ready for her to give birth, the women needed her back out here. 

 

“It’s so cute!” Beth cooed at her. 

 

“You know, Daryl really wants a boy.” Tara commented, folding a stack of onesy to put in her bag. “So you might want to get a lot of yellow.” 

 

“I don’t understand why people think that yellow is a gender neutral color, I’ve never met a guy with a yellow bedroom.” Enid chimed in to the conversation. 

 

“Me neither, Shawn hated the color.” Beth said, sighing at the memory of her brother Shawn and how he detested the yellow button down that their momma forced him to wear to church some Sundays. 

 

“Well it’s better than making a boy wear pink, especially when Daryl is the daddy.” Carol laughed. 

 

“God you’re right, Merle would have a fit too if he were still here.” She laughed, remembering how crude Merle used to be and how quick he was to jump to conclusions. 

 

“OH my god, that man, I’ve nearly forgotten about him.” Carol shook her head with a slight smile on her face. 

 

“Daryl can’t.” He had been having dreams about his brother lately, ones where he would wake up crying or sometimes even screaming. It bothered Beth a lot, she hated that Daryl had to be the one that found him and had to kill his walker self but at least he knew that Merle was gone, he knew where he was and it wasn’t like he was just gone again. 

 

“Who’s Merle?” Tara asked. 

 

“He was Daryl’s brother, he died, the governor killed him and left him to turn into a walker.” Tara’s heart nearly burst in her chest, she would never be able to forget all of the things that the governor had made her do, how he had changed their family for the worse and made them into villains. 

 

“I’m sorry.” Tara said quietly, so quiet it was almost a whisper. Beth had lost her father to the governor and part of it was Tara’s fault, so many had been lost because they believed the governor’s false words. 

 

“It’s fine.” Beth came up to Tara and hugged her tightly. “None of that was your fault, we all would have done something to be safe, to keep our family safe.” She kissed Tara’s cheek and they got back to work.


	19. Chapter 19

Daryl couldn’t help that he was enraged, he was used to being put down and told what to do by Merle and of course taking advice from Rick but the fact that the man talked to Daryl like he didn’t know how to take care of the person he loved bothered him. He was just as capable of taking care of other people as he was and he knew that if he so much as tried to keep Beth in the compound she would bash his head in. With this anger built up inside him he went in the woods to hunt, even though they had plenty of squirrels to last them for a week. He needed to blow off steam and if that meant killing a few measly animals and bashing a few walker heads in he was okay with that.

 

The forest was always peaceful when he was alone, when he had Beth with him he could never really appreciate the beauty of the forest because he was too busy looking at her own beauty. Even though there were monsters lurking in the forest he still felt at peace here, he had always run into the forest to escape his father's wrath, it had been his home away from home. That’s how Daryl learned his tracking skills, he would go so far in the woods, never looking where he was going that he would get lost but he learned how to follow his own tracks home. 

 

Daryl found himself constantly running, but from what he didn’t know. Maybe things were too good now, now that Beth was pregnant with his child and they were settled down in this community they had everything they needed and they were advancing. What was he going to do if something bad happened and none of them were prepared for it? That couldn’t happen though because they weren't those people, those people were up on the hill and they were the people that were meant to keep those people safe. 

 

Nodding his head at his own thoughts he continued to try to remember himself that there was no way Daryl could get soft because he didn’t know what it was to be soft. He sighed though as he remembered Beth hugging his back as he cried, after he had tried to use that walker for target practice and she wouldn’t let him, he broke and she was there to pick up the pieces. She was he strong hold. 

 

That was why Daryl got so angry at those who thought Beth was weak and Daryl was going to be the last man to survive. When Daryl was weak Beth brought him up, she saved him from his own demise. Without her he wouldn’t have made it through the separation, without her he wouldn’t have stayed in Alexandria for so long. But now he had a reason to try, to try to be normal and to be soft. But could he?

 

+++

Beth made her way home with the supplies in her backpack, a smile on her face and a song humming on the inside of her. She felt complete in ways that she couldn’t imagine she could have felt before. Once her mother was killed, she felt like nothing would go right anymore, she kept that journal and tried her hardest to believe but the only thing that really kept her believing was that she needed to show Daryl that there was a reason to still believe. 

 

She absent mindedly rubbed at her stomach, soothing herself. The gate to the community was just ahead and something inside of her began to feel even safer than before. Beth was always comfortable going outside of the gates and going on runs but something inside of her always reminded her that she wasn’t surrounded by walls again, that she could get hurt or killed in a matter of minutes. Beth let out a deep sigh as she opened the gates and let the others inside with her. For some reason she felt the strong urge to see Daryl. 

+++

There was a herd, another effing herd that Rick had failed to wrangle and lock up. Daryl was stuck, hidden behind a tree and sweating bullets. If he so much as stepped on a twig they would be on him like white on rice. He was going to have to make a run for it sooner or later though, who knew how many of them there were but he couldn’t lead them to the compound, it was too dangerous. 

 

A walker decided to stray from the group and go behind the tree where Daryl was hidden. It was one of those walkers that had been burnt up before it turned, its skin cracking and it’s face ripping as it snarled at Daryl. Quickly he shot his bolt and then ran to grab it from the walkers head. He heard the walkers snarling as they heard his movement. He had to move now before he was walker food. 

+++

Beth was in her room when she looked out of her window and noticed Daryl running towards the fences, she could see a few stray walkers following after him. She felt her stomach tighten, they had already dealt with one herd today, she didn’t know if they were prepared for another. Someone opened the gates for Daryl and Beth saw the walkers pile up. 

 

She ran outside, her gun and knife in hand. Mothers had put their children in the basement where the were safest the most. The others were outside shooting their guns and protecting the compound, they just seemed to keep piling up though. 

 

“Daryl are you okay?” Beth cried out as she ran down to him. She slammed into him, hugging him tightly. 

 

“I’m fine I’m fine, I think I sprained my ankle or somethin’ though.” He groaned, placing Beth safely behind him as he shot off his bolts into the walkers heads. “There are a lot of them Beth, I’m not sure if the walls will hold. As soon as the break, you need to leave, go get as many of the kids as you can and load them into the army truck we found, it’s already got food and guns in there so you should be safe on your-”

 

“Daryl I’m not goin’ to leave you!” Beth yelled at him, looking at Daryl in disbelief at the words the words that were coming out of his mouth. 

 

“Beth you won’t be leavin’ me- I’m tellin’ you, take the kids to the hill, warn the others so they can be ready.” 

 

“They won’t be ready Daryl, we are their ready!” She yelled again. You could hear the fences snapping and the wood breaking. 

“Beth go!” He yelled at her, getting in her face and turning into the Daryl that she had once known when she was wearing that yellow t-shirt. 

 

She screamed through her teeth but smacker her lips to his a second later and then ran to the kids to get them. She grabbed the babies with the help of some of the other mothers that had been watching them, they gathered them and put them in the large bed of the truck, closing the back and then getting in the truck. Beth watched as the walkers broke through from her rear view mirror. She prayed that things wouldn’t go to hell.


	20. Chapter 20

Nothing was burning, at least Beth couldn’t see any smoke from the hill, which was a good thing, considering that smoke meant fire and fire meant destruction. Beth sat in the tower belonging to the hill, looking over the gates and waiting for the others to come up the hill and tell them that everything was okay and they could go back down after the mess was cleaned up. Some of the walkers had followed Beth up the hill and she was currently taking them out with the sniper that Jesus gave her. 

 

He stood on the other side of the tower, watching her. He was always watching her when he was around her which bothered her slightly but he got over it, she needed to focus on killing these walkers so the others could come up safely. Beth didn’t like it on the hill, it was noisy but quiet at the same time, people wore clothes that Beth wouldn’t dare because she would be afraid to stain them. 

 

Beth saw Maggie from the hill tower. She stood down on the ground, carrying her baby on her hip, wearing a dress and her hair neatly done. It made Beth sick for some reason. “Why do you keep watchin’ me like that?” Beth yelled at the man, her sanity finally snapping. 

 

“Because you’re one of a kind- I don’t understand how a girl like you could survive in this world.” Jesus said, his facial expression never changing. 

 

“By avoiding a gun shot and getting her family killed.” She scoffed, rolling her eyes and getting back to killing the walkers. The sniper fired and its rebound hit her hard in the shoulder, she didn’t mind the pain though. 

 

“But you still have a sister, Maggie.” Jesus pointed down to where Maggie was standing. 

 

“Yeah, she might as well be dead though.” Beth didn’t even bother to look at the place where her sister would be standing. 

 

“Why do you say that?” He cocked his head to the right. 

 

“Because, she abandoned us- I understand that she just wants to give her baby a better life but abandonin’ her family and givin’ up what she believed in most is just too far fetch for me to believe that she’s the same Maggie that I knew. She’s changed.” 

 

“What if she’s changed for the better though?”

 

“She hasn’t changed for the better of this world.” Beth fired another shot and sighed. She needed to get out of her before she went crazy. 

+++

Walkers had been coming at them left and right, breaking down walls that they thought wouldn’t break for anything but then again this herd was a lot for them to handle. Daryl hadn’t been bitten but a stray bullet caught him in his shoulder, he was forced to shot with only one arm. The pain was agonizing but Daryl had been through worse before and survived so he could do it again. 

 

“Daryl, we need to get movin’ we’re goin’ to be dead if we stay ‘ere any longer!” Rick called to him, he fired off his gun and walker blood sprayed all over his face, making Rick look like a madman. 

 

“Alrigh’ brother! Get to the cars!” Daryl called to everyone, hoping to save as many as he could, they had more ammo and weapons there, the walls were thicker on the hill to, things would be safer there. 

 

Everyone started running like hell, for the first time in a while Daryl was scared, he was afraid of what had happened to Beth, what was going to happen to this place, and so many other things were running through his head that he didn’t even realize that he had busted through the gates of their fortress. His head hurt and his arm hurt even worse once he slammed into the steering wheel with his bad arm. He groaned and felt a hand on his good arm. 

 

“You okay brother?” Rick said, the ringing in Daryl’s ears stopped once he heard his friend speak.

 

Daryl nodded slowly and put his eyes back on the road, the were quickly speeding up the the hills gates. The opened quickly letting everyone that had made it inside. He got out of the car and looked around, the ringing came back when he saw Beth running down the stairs of the watch tower. She slammed into his, hugging him tightly; he winced when she put pressure on his arm with the bullet in it.

 

“Oh my god! He’s been shot, Daryl you need to go to the infirmary!” Beth grabbed his face and when Daryl collapsed so did her whole world.


	21. Chapter 21

She felt dead inside as she watched them pull the bullet out of Daryl’s arm, they said it was nothing serious, that he’d be able to use it again once it healed up. He fainted from shock though, something about us being too safe for too long. We should have been prepared for this, that was the whole point of us being down there, so we could be the ones who were prepared, so we could be the ones who protected the people on the hill but here we were running up the hill for safety. 

 

It had been two days and Daryl hadn’t woken up, he was fine but he was just so exhausted from the attack. Rick came in on the second day that Daryl was asleep, Beth hadn’t moved from the spot next to him on her chair. “Beth, we need you, I know you wanna be ‘ere for Daryl but we need you right now.” Rick said softly, knowing very well what the girl was going through. “You gotta eat too, you’re eatin’ for two now, Daryl wouldn’t want you starvin’ yourself with his baby inside ya.” He chuckled lowly, trying to get her to see reality and come out of this nightmarish state that she was in. 

 

“What do ya need me for?” She asked, keeping her eyes on Daryl and not moving an inch. 

 

“We gotta start cleaning the place out, gotta build the walls back up.” 

 

“The walkers are gone?” Still she hadn’t moved and she didn’t know if she could, she felt like if she moved she would somehow be betraying Daryl. 

 

“Yeah, we got the rest of them killed and the ones that followed us up ‘ere are bein’ burned right now.” Rick nodded. “Beth, you can’t just-”

 

“Don’t you tell me what I can and can’t do!” She hollered, leaping out of the chair suddenly and sticking her finger in the man's face. “Daryl is in this coma or whatever and it’s because you can’t do your job! You were suppose to keep the herds in check, you were suppose to know where they all were and what they were going. But you weren’t.” Angry tears formed in her eyes, she was tired and hungry and emotional. She felt like throwing up. “I’m gonna puke.” She warned him, Rick quickly grabbed the trash bin and held it up to Beth’s face, she heaved into it and then started crying. Rick lowered the basket when he thought that she was done puking. 

 

“Beth-” He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. 

 

“I can’t do this alone Rick- I can’t be alone with this baby- not without Daryl!” Beth fell into Rick’s shoulder, sobbing into him. She needed comfort and she would take it from anyone she trusted at the moment. 

 

He pulled her back, firmly placing his hands on either side of her shoulders. “Beth, look at me, you can do this. Daryl will wake up but you could do this even without him, you did it with Judy and you can do it with your own baby. You’re a strong woman Beth, you can do anythin’ you set your mind too.” He voice was soft and sweet, just the tone he thought Beth needed at the moment. 

 

She simply nodded, not knowing what to really say to him. “You go get somethin’ to eat.” Rick added patting her shoulder lightly. “When you’re done eating make your way down to the compound and you can start helping us clean the place up.” Rick left her with that. 

 

Beth made her way to the cafeteria by herself, she sat down on the one of the park benches in the hill and ate her eggs and bread, she didn’t think she could stomach much else. She made sure to grab two bottles of water, one for breakfast and the other for when she was down at the compound. Maggie had been watching her sister and she finally got up the nerve to go and sit across from her.

 

Beth looked up at her, with a glare and then continued eating her food. “Look I know you’re mad at me-”

 

“Maggie, no.” Beth said simply, shaking her head and then getting back to eating her food. She was definitely not in the mood for this conversation. 

 

“Beth you gotta listen to me.” Maggie pleaded. 

 

“No, I don’t. Listen,” Beth forced a smile. “I’ve been through some crap in the last three days and I could do without you trying to tell me what I gotta do again.” 

 

“I’m sorry about Daryl.” Maggie said quietly. 

 

“He’ll be fine.” Beth said dryly. 

 

“I heard about the baby.” She tried to change the mood of the conversation, tried to get Beth to be her Beth, the one that gushed and talked about things she was excited about. 

 

“Yeah.” That wasn’t the reply Maggie was hoping for. 

 

“Look, I know you’re mad at me, I know that you don’t wanna speak to me or even look at me. But I just wanna tell you that I love you, I know you think that I abandoned the group but I didn’t. I needed to do this to become me again, the real me, not the one that went around killing walkers and nearly killing herself in the process.” Maggie pursed her lips in thin line, once she saw that Beth wasn’t going to give her a break she stood up quickly and stomped away without another word. 

 

Beth felt bad, she should have given Maggie more reaction, she shouldn’t have treated her like she was some stranger. But she couldn’t find it in herself to forgive her sister, it was too hard, not after she just left them. Their father wouldn’t have wanted them to just leave once they had the chance of safety, he would follow Rick and do what he thought was right. But what was right nowadays?

+++

 

The compound was barely recognizable when Beth entered it, the gates had been ruined and the crops had been trampled on by the walkers, they would have to start all over in that department. The mansion was still standing and so were the frames of the houses that they were building. Everyone was hard at work, trying to burn the corpses and pull out the crops to put new seeds in. They’d have to tear down the fence and make a new one there too. Beth sighed at how much work there was too do. 

 

“Doesn’t even look like our heaven anymore does it?” Tara said coming up beside Beth. 

 

“Not really.” She sighed sadly and looked around the compound again. “What can I do?”

 

“You can go help the others pull up the crops, most of them were too damaged and we’re going to have to start over again, hopefully we have enough saved up from last year and the the bit we harvested earlier to last us through the winter.” Tara looked at Beth, her eyes were dull and dark circles had formed under them. “How you feelin’?” She asked her. 

 

“Worried, anxious. I’m feeling about everything besides the good emotions, ya know?” She looked up at the taller girl and gave her a forced smile. “I’ll be fine though,” Beth said once she saw the concern in Tara’s eyes. “when Daryl gets better I’ll be great.” 

 

The rest of the day was spent fixing things up, they managed to tear down half the gate and get all of the crops up, planting new seeds right behind them. Beth let ogh of relief when she realized that that might have been the worse of it all; he could only hope that is was anyways.


	22. Chapter 22

Beth wasn’t dealing well with Daryl’s amnesia. After they finished talking to him in the infirmary she left the room and walked around the hill for hours, when night fell Daryl was kept in the infirmary room just to make sure that he wouldn’t change overnight. She was still on the tower, she had Daryl’s crossbow and she was practicing on the stray walkers that had followed the noise here, she expected a big group to come at any moment. 

 

She was armed with a glock, her sniper, the crossbow and her knife. All the bolts that Daryl had she had shot and killed walkers with, now she had to go and retrieve them. Jesus was in charge of the gate at night, Beth went out and Jesus secured the gate behind her. Retrieving the bolts was easy especially now that she felt no remorse for the walkers like she did when she was younger, they were dead and had been for a while, she was just putting them at peace. 

 

There was rustling coming from the woods just on the other side of the highway, Beth had retrieved the last of the bolts, she readied the crossbow, holding it up in firing position. A walker emerged and she shot it, a second one start coming from the woods and then another behind that. The next herd. “Jesus, get the others!” Beth yelled. 

 

She had five bolts, including the one that was in the walker's head, she took out four more and then she resulted to using her knife. She stabbed a walker in the head and then the next, they were getting to be too much though, Jesus came just in the time needed. He had a gun with a silencer on it, he threw a silencer Beth’s way and they began taking walkers out. Beth ran out of bullets right when Rick and Daryl came out. 

 

Her whole body paused as she looked at Daryl, coming out with his gun, his wounded arm dangling next to him, he still couldn’t use it all the way yet. “Beth look out!” Rick yelled. She shot at the walker without even having to look at it. Sighing she focused back on the walker's, her whole body was numb. She thought of her father, of her sister, of her brother. Beth was lost in her thoughts, absentmindedly killing the walkers. The walkers were all down and they all stood there panting, Beth looked at Daryl once more and saw the shook on his face, this was his first mental time of seeing a walker. 

 

“Well hell, ya’ll weren’t kiddin’.” Daryl scoffed. “Guess that means they weren’t kiddin’ bout you either.” He said looking at Beth. 

 

“You ain’t gotta worry bout me. You don’t know me.” Beth said grimly. 

 

She stalked off and decided that this was how things needed to be, she could take care of herself, she could do this. All. By. Herself. 

 

Daryl looked at the girl as she stalked off, retrieving the arrows from the walker's head. Daryl noticed something though. Those were his arrows, that was his crossbow that she was toting around. “Sure I ain’t gotta worry bout you but that’s my bow you’re carrying around and I’d like to have it back.” He barked at her. 

 

“Guess you’re right.” She sneered at him. She threw the bow, it dropped in front of him at his feet. “You can get the bolts.” 

 

“Don’t go throwin’ shit at me girl- specially stuff that’ll shot at me!” He said putting his finger in her face. 

 

“Get your damn finger out of my face! I’ll do whatever I want Mr.Dixon and until you’re you again, don’t you dare try to tell me what to do- you’re back to the same trailer trash that I met at my daddy’s farm.” Beth spat. She didn’t know what she was saying, her brain had registered that this Daryl was not the one who she fell in love with- her Daryl wouldn’t curse at her like that. 

 

“Who the hell are you callin’ trailer trash? I’m the one that got ya knocked up right? SO obviously I’m good ‘nough for ya!” 

 

“You were- when you looked for Sophia, when you held ass kicker, when you asked me to sing for ya, when we were in the funeral home- when you shot Dawn- but you ain’t now!” Beth wasn’t crying, she was furious at the world, furious at the way her life was going and why the world continued to take the things she loved away from her. 

 

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” Daryl hissed at her. 

 

“Yeah I know.” Her face was in a twisted rage. “Rick, I’m goin’ to the compound.” 

 

“Beth you can’t-”

 

“Shut the hell up.” 

 

She trudged away, down the roads and towards the compound. Daryl watched as the walked down the road, her hair bobbing up and down in that ponytail of hers. A walker came from the tree line and Beth screamed at the top of her lungs, not in fear but in anger, she was tired of seeing these things. She kicked it and then stabbed it about seven times in the walker's head. 

 

“I’ll go after her.” Carol said. 

 

“Daryl you should go too.” Rick said, he needed things fixed between the two of them, he needed Beth back to the way she was, normal. 

 

“Why, the bitch don’t wanna talk to me.” He scoffed. 

 

“Daryl, she’s the love of your life, I know you don’t remember this and I know that she’s treatin’ you like shit but she loves you. You’re the only person she’s got left.” 

 

“Fine, if she shoots me though.. it’s on your ass.” Daryl said annoyed, this girl was gonna kill him. 

 

Beth sat in her room, she had found a pack of Daryl’s cigarettes and even though she didn’t smoke she felt she needed some right now. Beth was hauled up in the very corner of her room, the light from the moon shining in on her, the cigarette was the only peace she could find. Carol and Daryl were at the stairs on floor below. 

 

“Daryl, you need to talk to her.” Carol said quietly. 

 

“Look I don’t know that girl anymore and she don't know me.” 

 

“Just listen you hard head. You didn’t know each other at all once but you two got stuck, out here all alone and you bonded, you lost her and then you found her again, don’t let her be the one to lose you.” Carol said sternly. 

 

“Fine.” Daryl mumbled. He made his way up the stairs and found the room where Beth was in, he wouldn’t have known she was in there if he hadn’t seen the cigarette smoke coming from the room. “You wanna share?” He asked as he came in and sat two feet away from her. She threw him a cigarette and a lighter. “Didn’t peg you for a smoker.” Daryl said after he started his cigarette up. 

 

“I don’t, I needed one though. Always put you in a better mood.” She said with a dull tone as she stared out into the darkness. 

 

“What… how did we meet?” Daryl asked.

 

Beth told him the story of the farm, when Carl got shot and how they came to the farm, how Sophia was missing and how he got hurt trying to look for her. She told him how they cleared out the barn that held the walkers, that he was the one that shot his momma in the face but she came back cause the bullet didn’t touch her brain. She told him everything, the moonshine shack, the prison, the hospital. Everything and he didn’t remember a thing. 

 

“You love me huh?” 

 

“You could say that.” Beth said bleakly. 

 

“I remember one time I got lost in the woods, I was about eight or something. I was lost for nine days and was eatin’ nothin’ but berries and wippin’ my ass with poison oak- or ivy, not sure which.” 

 

“You found your way home didn’t you.” It was a statement from Beth, not a question, she knew that even as a child Daryl could do extraordinary things.

 

“Sure as hell did, my dad was off on a binder with some waitress and Merle was doin’ a stint in Juvie. I got home and made myself a sandwich.” Daryl sighed. 

 

“You ain’t got any good memories do ya?” A question this time. 

 

Daryl thought about it for a bit, he tried to search the recesses of his mind. “There was this one time, my mom would sing to me and read me books up until I was bout seven. She died in a fire.” 

 

“Even your good memories got bad endin’s.” Beth sighed. “There was this one time that my sister Maggie, she came back from this vacation with her friends when she was about sixteen, I was twelve. I found these pink and blue pills, I thought they were candies. Maggie caught me with ‘em and told me what they were for cause I kept askin’ her for a piece. I freaked out, the idea of my sisters and boys was horrible,” she giggled slightly. “I took it out to the pond near my house and through them in, Maggie was hollerin’ at me and my brother Shawn was laughin’ bout the whole thing. Daddy came out yellin’ askin’ us what was goin’ on. I thought real quick and told myself if daddy finds out he’ll ground Maggie, so I batted my eyeslashes, tears and snot coverin’ my face and I said ‘We’re just swimmin’ daddy.’” 

 

Daryl chuckled lowly at this, picturing the girl little with big blue eyes and tears running down her face. “Me and Merle were so different in age, he was older and always gettin’ in trouble so we don't have many good memories together.” Daryl raked his brain for a good memory with he and Merle. “We ain’t got none now that I think of it.” He remembered that someone had told him that Merle had been killed, left to turn. “Did I…. was I the one that killed Merle after he..”

 

“Yeah.” Beth noded.

 

“Good.” Daryl nodded with her fiercely, trying to keep the tears from consuming herself. 

 

“When all this happened, I tried to kill myself, when we got separated- when the prison fell, you made fun of me for it, we got into a fight and you just went off on me.” She laughed dryly at the memory. 

 

“What were we?” Daryl asked, honestly interested. 

 

“We were nothin’ then. You got stuck with me, you thought I was just another dead girl. I proved you wrong though. I told you, you’re gonna miss me so bad when I’m gone Daryl Dixon, and you did. When you saw me you acted like you were looking like a ghost and then when you saved me from Dawn, you scoped me up and you took me outside, I was so happy. I was home. We fell apart after that though, we just stopped talking to each other, we got through some things and then once we were settled in the mansion, I said I wanted a baby, and you were the person I wanted it with.” 

 

Daryl looked at her and something flashed in his head, he saw her, wearing her sweater, she was sitting behind bars but looking up at him with curious eyes. “I remember ya, not you but I got this image of ya in my head.” Daryl tapped his temple. 

 

“Yeah?” She half smiled at him, a flicker of hope going through her but then fading away quickly. “I was about nineteen or eighteen in the prison.” 

 

He stared at the side of Beth’s face for a while, she took out another cigarette and Daryl lit it for her. “Sorry I don’t remember everythin’.” He shrugged. 

 

“Not your fault. Shouldn’t of called you trailer trash.” Beth let out a sigh, smoke coming from her lips. “How do you smoke these?” She choked slightly. 

 

Daryl scoffed and then took the cigarette from her mouth and took his own drag. “Cause I’ve been doin’ it since I was bout twelve.” He blew the smoke in his face, just to mess with her. “Beth, right?” 

 

“Jerk.” She hit him gently. “Yeah, Beth Greene.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKay guys, so you're probably wondering "woah what the hell is this plot twist?" But I promise, this is only going to keep the fic going on longer and I'm pretty sure- or at least feeling like you guys don't want this to end just yet. So enjoy!


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